I'd say this was all about the ratings if these news shows had any. They are some of the lowest ratings to be found. I'd believe people really cared about it, too, if they were consuming their news this way, rather than finding it online or getting it from the Daily Show or Stephen Colbert.

U.S. Politics has been for decades, over a century now, of defining the narrative, and the watchdog has been eating some pretty fine table scraps while turning the other way. The only collusion is that everyone is in on it.

Someone figured out long ago that a one party system, or basically some kind of despotism (monarchy, dictator, communism, socialism), was doomed to fail because the opposition actually was the opposition. But, if you can fabricate the opposition, have two parties seemingly equally pitted against one another and then succeed in splitting the people behind it, or perpetuating the lie that the people are so split, then you could have your agenda continue on long after you were dead, because the believers would fight each other while the rest just went about their lives, hoping for some peace and quiet.

It's all about power and maintaining it. There are some believers, but mostly, they're the useful idiots. The true power brokers are the ones that manage to stay in the shadows, out of the limelight and are quite happy to have Trump tweet and the media go beserk over it.