There’s a clear campaign against the mentally ill with the global rise of fascism. Lots of it shows up in anti homeless rhetoric, but you can see it in the MAHA and anti vaccination movements.
There’s no reason to use the word “r-tarded” to describe someone. As someone who’s worked with the intellectually challenged, it’s an insult to them to compare them with people who are willfully ignorant.
I’m saying that playing language police in this way is a waste of time and effort because even if you get people to play along, you haven’t really accomplished much of anything when people just reach for a synonym for the exact same purpose.