Being an open fascist was less socially acceptable. We had a social democrat PM who told the fascist party that they would "never be housebroken", today the social democrats' policing is that "you should not be able to place a cigarette on paper" between them and the fascists when it comes to being racist.

I still remember how some nazi inherited a house somewhere and tried turning it into nazi HQ. Every night people would protest in front of the house, average people from the town would turn up and stand with torches and sing until they bullied the nazi out of town. Something like that would be unthinkable today.

I'm not saying that everything was fine. The seeds for lots of evil shit we have today were sown back then. But at least there's was a general idea that you could not be racist in polite society.