Our three political parties: Democratic, Republican, and Fox News
It's true that the relation between the Republican and Fox News parties is closer than a coalition. It is a bit like the relationship between the CDU and the CSU in Germany -- they don't contest elections, with the CSU running only it its turf in Bavaria, but they remain separate parties and every now and then the CSU creates a crisis by threatening to separate from the CDU. Anyway, without the CSU the CDU would not be a national party and would be much less likely to form a government. In the USA, the Fox News Party does not contest general elections, but in many Republican primaries, a candidate cannot win without the support of the Fox Party.
Apparently Trump never actually said that he would run as a Republican because they are the dumbest group of voters, would believe anything Fox News told them, and that he could "lie and lie" and win. But that is exactly what he did. What he did not anticipate is that if he were elected as the candidate of the Fox party, he would be a prisoner of the Fox Party. I think that's part of the story behind the wall standoff. The wall is a policy of the Fox Party, not of the Republican Party. Trump has tried to back off it a bit, only to realize that he would lose the Fox Party, and he believes that he would be impeached if he lost them -- just as the CDU/CSU would lose its parliamentary majority if the CSU dropped out.
As for the Republicans, one could pity them a little bit. But I think the lesson is that these more-than-coalition relationships can be very stable. From now on out, it is the Republicans who are the third party -- and they know that -- but they will choose to be the servants of the Fox Party rather than being out of government entirely.
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