I don’t disagree, but an important distinction relative to the OP is that political communication is in an overtly adversarial environment. It’s a whole other ballgame.

I suspect "overtly adversarial environment" applies to a large chunk of all communication. Perhaps even most. People will willfully interpret any communication to suit their own agendas.

I think maybe you mean misinterpret? Or maybe we need a new word: disinterpret.

I think interpret was accurate already. I will definitely interpret something differently from someone else without either of us necessarily being guilty of active perversion.

Then you're "interpreting differently" = misinterpret. Everyone interprets everything to understand it at all but you misinterpret it when you understand it differently than intended. And maybe you disinterpret when you do so intentionally.

Incorrect.

yes, but the scale of the audience size is similar.

I don't think nuance was the issue for Romney and the "flipping" issue.

Romney was a pretty successful Governor of a liberal state. He needed to appeal to nationwide Republicans in the primary so he slid a lot further to the right. Then he was up against a reasonably popular Democratic president, so he slid back to the middle.

The only nuance was that he tried to muddy the sloshing to make it look like he wasn't changing his positions.