> Do we all really believe that Bannon was actually, literally saying he would be-head these people and put their heads on spikes...or as adults do we realize he was using hyperbole?

Book reading has been in decline for a long time, and the loss of high level literacy and the ability to sense nuance and figurative language is a sign of that.

A lot of people indeed can't understand how the quote could have other meanings besides the literal one, because they've rarely encountered such use of language before.