Donald Trump, thirty years younger, glares out amidst exhibits featuring the Apple Newton, Betamax tapes, Harley-Davidson Cologne and 20th century lobotomy instruments. Ensconced in a white-lit shadow box, Trump's marquee brand name stands out in Sweden's Museum of Failure.
Psychologist Dr. Samuel "Doctor Failure" West, started in the Museum of Failure in the Swedish town of Helsingborg, across the Öresund Strait from Copenhagen. Founded in 2017 with help from the Swedish Innovation Fund, the Museum of Failure encourages visitors to dwell on how we might better learn from failure in the future.
"I was looking for a new way to communicate research findings and stimulate a discussion and interest in the whole concept of learning from failure and I thought an exhibit would be a fun way to do that," West told the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Museum of Failure in southern Sweden ("a collection of failed products and services from around the world") features the Trump board game. pic.twitter.com/5Z1hxe9bmp
— Christian Christensen (@ChrChristensen) January 6, 2019
In Trump: The Game, originally published by Milton Bradley in 1989, three to four players buy and sell real estate, negotiating with $10 million, $50 million and $100 million bills. On the game dice, the number six is replaced by a "T," because "Trump always wins."
The first printing was a failure, selling only 800,000 copies of an anticipated two million sales. In 2004, Parker Brothers re-released the game in an attempt to capitalize off the success of The Apprentice, adding Trump's catchphrase, "You're fired!" The re-release also underperformed.
The game is often listed alongside other high profile Trump failures, including Trump Airlines, Trump Magazine and Trump Steak. But it may share even more in common with fraudulent ventures, like Trump University, instead.
Trump: The Game shares a surprising link to one of the president's other failed ventures: the Donald J. Trump Foundation. While promoting the board game's initial launch, Trump proclaimed Trump: The Game would be "the game for the nineties" and pledged, seemingly spontaneously, his share of the profits to charity.
Despite more than a million dollars in royalties, a Huffington Post investigation found no evidence any of the profit was donated, a pattern identical to Trump Vodka and his book Crippled America, both of which were advertised as benefiting charity. The Trump Organization and Hasbro, which brought Milton Bradley, refused to comment.
In December, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced The Donald J. Trump Foundation would be shut down in light of "a shocking pattern of illegality," including the illegal transfer of funds and unlawful political conduct.
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