The following exchange is from the 1995 movie “The American President:”

Lewis Rothchild (Michael J. Fox): “People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.”

To which President Andrew Shepard (Michael Douglas) responds,

“Lewis, we’ve had presidents who were beloved, who couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.”

Enter President Trump and the 2020 presidential campaign.

Americans in Trump World believe they have been left out. Their skills have often been superseded by automation or more competitive technologies. Their industries have become antiquated or exported overseas in a race to the bottom of the wage-and-benefit scale by those who remain unaffected by the economic and social upheaval they leave in their wake, and over which those who are affected have no influence.

Many feel their place in society is under attack by “the others.” There is little left of their comfort zone other than a fond, perhaps idealized, memory of what once may have existed, and an uneasiness that it exists no longer.

They feel ignored by the political elite in charge of the government that all too often opts for expressions of sympathy and rhetorical platitudes rather than risking tough choices that might upset a status quo that currently all but guarantees re-election in perpetuity. The institutions that underpin the structure of that government not only are no longer seen as sacrosanct but are actively seen as being part of what ails the body politic or, more ominously, as obstructions to be circumvented.

The academicians, pundits, and “experts” who have not walked in the shoes of those to whom they presume to lecture are actively resented.

At issue here is not the legitimacy of the concerns, but rather the legitimacy of President Trump’s assertion that he is uniquely qualified to address those concerns.

President Trump was astute enough to the grab the microphone and proclaim loudly that he was, and is, the only one willing to fight for the issues important to Ordinary Joe and Joanne. More importantly, only he has been consecrated from on high to reveal to Joe and Joanne what those issues should be.

As millions of Americans navigate their way across a desert of political grievance and discontent, the open question of 2020 is whether, when they reach the end of their journey next November, does President Trump provide water – or sand?

President Trump works most effectively in a state of perpetual chaos. What is important is not so much reaching a solution, but rather the electricity and drama of a public fight to reach a solution on his own terms.

It keeps his base energized, engaged, and loudly supportive.

It feeds his view of himself as always being the alpha male.

Arguably, for him, reaching a solution to a problem may even be counterproductive because it takes the issue off the front burner, whereas stringing out the fight keeps the base in turmoil and in an ongoing state of agitation.

Using controversies as political red meat rather than as problems demanding resolution has little down side. Failure to resolve can always be laid off on others – the Congress (especially the Democrats), the “deep state,” the courts, or whatever happens to be the bete noir of the moment.

Being able to claim loudly “I’m fighting for you” apparently is presumed enough to command absolute loyalty.

Is it really? Or are words alone nothing more than just words?

What remains to be seen in 2020 is whether the American electorate demands that their leader delivers on his promise to provide them with water, or are they willing to settle for a fistful of sand?

And will they have the wisdom to distinguish one from the other?