Who Follows Who?

I have long kept watch
on those who appear to act
as if they are in actual power.

The longer I watched
the more I wondered
at was the nature of the force
that kept them there?

Now I think I know
-the leader speak the lines
written for them by the popular press
-well behind the scenes,
The press then amplify
what the leader has said,
as though the leader
wrote their own lines
when many folk can guess
that they didn't,

For as long as consumers pay
for this back room spin operation
because they buy the products
that support the newspapers,
through advertising, then democracy
will continue the be engineered.