One could argue they were "punching a nazi" of their time. The establishment of a dictatorship of the working class was a mission for which no human sacrifice was too great.

Obviously we're nowhere near that in modern US, BUT the hints of "violence in exchange for a dissenting opinion" and "what I don't agree with is Nazism" are unpleasant to say the least.

>the hints of "violence in exchange for a dissenting opinion"

I couldn't agree more. I've seen both actual violence and extreme glorification of violence against people of the opposite political affiliation more and more over the past couple years. Many people seem to dismiss the calls to violence as "trolls", which is actually probably true, but I have to wonder if there is much of a difference between a troll who calls for violence and loves to see people get attacked at rallies, and a person who would actually be happy about these things if they became worse than they are now. I feel like there used to be a solid distinction, but I'm not sure any longer that there's really a hard line between all "trolls" and people who would actually enact these things, given the power (and given no significant threat to themselves, of course).

In addition to the violence aspect, there's also total power asymmetry in bigoteering. Calling someone a Nazi, a white supremacist, a racist, a bigot, a homophobe, a xenophobe, a misogynist, a transphobe, a cultural appropriator, whatever other trendy moral shortcoming du jour, with no need for supporting evidence whatsoever, has no downside to the accuser. Accuse away. You're doing a service to society.

The entirety of the burden is always on the accused.

> One could argue they were "punching a nazi" of their time.

One could. One would have to forego any claim to "absolute freedom of speech," however.