When you use the word idiot, it's also at their expense. The capacity to use these words in a derogatory sense is owing to their meaning, and it has not changed. The reflective attitude that similar terms are comparatively cleaner as they exist in a sort of bubble as "pure insults with no meaning" is a fantasy.

It's not good to be an idiot, and it never will be. Take your r-word, there's no shortage of others that mean the same thing. It's possible to love and show compassion to those with intellectual disabilities, not insult them to their face, and still accept that these conditions are not a positive, to the extent that in broader society people will show disdain for irrational behavior by invoking any one of these words, at the expense of those who don't know any better.

I don't think calling someone an idiot necessitates that the mentally disabled are harmed for it. Btw, Stephens is coached.