Fetterman wasn't the sharpest tack in the box before his stroke, if you ask me, but there's a big difference between an auditory processing disorder (which can improve with therapy), or a minor speech impediment, and being "mentally handicapped." A lot of Americans have known people with worse speech impediments, or deaf people, or people physically disabled by a stroke, who were quite smart, yet shunned by employers or infantilized by strangers and even "helping professionals." I think the attempt to portray Fetterman as inferior backfired badly by creating sympathy in voters who've seen friends or family wrongly treated as mental inferiors because of a physical defect.

-Translucent Jejune Octopus