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.
Using terms like sociopath to describe someone is worse than a slur. It pseudo-intellectual cowardice to use that rather than saying that you think someone is crazy or more directly removed.
I think that if you remove pathways that are non-violent, like name-calling, then that makes a more direct path to violence. And NAZIs have shown that violence is inevitable in history.
And hate speech is a crime in many places.