Use of Modern Myths in Donald Trump's 2016 Presidential Campaign

The main purpose of this research was to find out whether Donald Trump has effectively used modern political myths in his 2016 pre-election campaign. For that, the following was done: - based on a big pool of literature (both fundamental and recent) a concept of the modern political myth has been designed; - the main myths used by Trump in his campaign were found, classified and described; - a survey among the citizens of the USA has been held in order to examine the perception of those myths by the electorate. The research required a study of public statements, made by the candidates in the Internet, on the TV and radio, on rallies and debates in the run of the presidential campaign. For this part of the work, the methods of discourse- and content-analysis were applied. Moreover, a questionnaire was made to measure recognizability and level of approval of the myths used by Trump. The degree of effectiveness of use of the modern political myths in Trump’s presidential campaign was calculated based on the results of the survey. Donald Trump had used numerous myths, most of which can be combined in more massive constructions: «America First», «Radical Islamic Terrorism», «Build a Wall». These mythologems intersect each other in adjusted areas and are all parts of a «Make America Great Again» frame. Trump’s rhetoric was mostly based of fear: he scared the electorate with outer and inner threats and then promised to successfully solve them. This rhetoric was effective for Trump’s target audience (white wealthy southerners with low level of education) but did not work on the target audience of Hillary Clinton (“colored” students with low level of income), which happened to be represented by the pool of survey respondents. However, Trump has managed to win some votes in this sphere because of more politicized rhetoric than that of his opponent.