I think with normal people who weren't in "leftist spaces" I noticed they started using it again IRL after COVID

My normie liberal friends don't care

I think the difference is that it's really weird and immature for a politician to run on it

Also, one of the largest and most active forums in the internet (Wallstreet bets) used it with zero irl consequences.

It'll get you looked at funny and shouted at if the people around you are cool if you say it out loud, but the truth is that most people didn't really care about it so much as to do something about it the way other slurs do.

Was it really ever a word you couldn't say? Even liberal Americans say it offline during conventions. Only on the internet you can't say it.

Yeah and the latter only since about 10 years, plus minus.