I think that Trump’s unpopularity would actually be a real boon to someone who very publicly broke with him and was willing to tell stories of how unhinged he was. Obviously that would be burning some bridges, but it would be forging others.
I think we probably underestimate how many people use words functionally in the first place. If you spend time around little kids, you’ll hear them say all kinds of things that flatly aren’t true but that clearly are meant to achieve a certain result, and I don’t think people change that much from childhood. Instead, you see an increase in sophistication in picking the right words to get the right effect.
Formulating a coherent idea (as opposed to desired outcome) and then choosing words to try to communicate that idea is something that, I think, we learn through education because education requires us to have this skill to function properly. There are no performative words to give someone the ability to do calculus; at some point you need to actually be able to explain a the concepts in the abstract. (I’m not demeaning people who have poor educations, just pointing out that they are obviously going to lack certain tools. I was recently in a position where I couldn’t fix my cabinet door because I didn’t have a drill - that doesn’t say anything about my quality or value as a person.)
Education was a big predictor of support for Trump, so you would expect a larger proportion of people with lower education in Trump’s group. People with poor education are probably more likely to use language in a functional rather than a meaning-based way. But a person who doesn’t tend to rely on meaning-based language is also not going to think that other people do either, just like a person who is bad at chess is going never going to understand the strategy of a grand master even after they lose to them.
So I wonder, what did they think that second question was really asking? If I participate in a study like that, I assume the goal is to have me answer every question very plainly. I usually guess that psychology studies are trying to trick me in some way, but they want to figure out my genuine response to their trick. I know what they are doing and why. A Trump supporter faced with, “Which is Trump’s inauguration?” followed by “Which has more people?” may not take that situation into account. They interpret the questions the way you would interpret them if your schoolyard rival asked them - that is, the second question isn’t asking which photo they think has more people, it’s rubbing it in that Obama had a bigger crowd.
Because of this, I’m not sure the interpretation of the responses is correct. Some of those people may have been well aware which picture had more people, but have said something untrue not to show loyalty, but instead to throw a wrench into the works of someone who they perceived as making fun of them. And in a way, they are actually reading the situation right. Right now I’m sure there are people making fun of them (even though they are making fun of them for giving the answer the gave). One way or another this study was going to be used as fuel for insults.
I think Trump speaks functionally rather than meaningfully pretty much all the time. He doesn’t lie, he says what he thinks will achieve a result without even considering what the truth is. He may have a poor grasp of meaningful communication and it’s possible he never even told Spicer to lie - he just told Spicer to utter the words he wanted uttered (of course, for Spicer, they were lies).
