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.
Who is renornalizing it?
Have you not looked at this thread? Apparently a fuck ton of Lemmy users are.
No I haven’t, I guess I don’t live in an area where it’s being"re-normalized".
That said, once any term is used in a negative connotation long enough it becomes offensive and a new word is chosen. Until that becomes offensive.
It’s an endless cycle.
Apparently a lot of Lemmy users are just dying to use it and genuinely believe it isn’t ableist, hateful, or problematic.