I Visited a Pop-Up Museum at the RNC Dedicated to Trump's Failures

Donald Trump's board game is sort of the perfect metaphor for his campaign. For starters, he once announced that the profits from of it would go to charities, and it doesn't seem like they ever did. This fits a pattern of Trump bragging about his record of charitable giving, a record that is… hard to check. It's also possible that the game didn't make much in the way of profits, because it sucks really bad.

"It's not actually very fun." Jessica Mackler, the president of liberal Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, told VICE. "There's really not a lot of clear instructions. It's just 'making deals.'"

The dice are made in China.

American Bridge was founded in 2010 by a former self-described "right-wing hitman" named David Brock. When the Republican National Convention isn't happening, the group is dedicated to fighting Republican talking points. This week, American Bridge has set up a pop-up museum dedicated to Trump out of a loft space rented on Airbnb. It's situated on top of an unassuming Rust Belt bar just off East Fourth Street, which for the convention has become a sort of Bourbon Street for sober political nerds. The project is a result of a year's worth of research into the man who claims his alleged business success makes him qualified to be president.

"We knew that a convention is about telling the story of a candidate, and we wanted to make sure that we told the true story of Donald Trump and who he really is," Mackler said. "And so we had collected so much of this material and felt this was a creative way to demonstrate Trump as a con man who scammed people out of money to get rich, as somebody who touts himself as a successful businessman but is really a litany of failed business ventures, and as someone who has a history of divisive, dangerous rhetoric."

Turning opposition research into a full-blown museum isn't an idea Mackler had ever heard of, and it's hard to imagine a similar series of exhibits on any other candidates being as entertaining. Here's a shirt from the failed football team the New Jersey Generals, there's a metal card passengers used to get onto Trump Shuttle flights. But there are also pieces of a much more serious nature, such as a photo of Trump with the former Miss Universe winner who says he belittled for gaining weight, and a 1927 edition of the New York Times that contains an article reporting the nominee's father was arrested for taking part in a Klu Klux Klan action.

"Over the course of his life there's this history of sexist and racist actions that goes beyond just this election cycle," said Mackler. "It's not just something he's doing to cater to a Republican base or for entertainment value. It's a part and parcel of who he is."

There are also materials that hint at a history of plagiarism, which is timely considering Melania Trump's Michelle Obama impression on the convention's opening night. When asked if that sort of behavior had any sort of precedent with the Trumps, Mackler pointed to a collection of documents from Trump University, the for-profit real estate program that's currently being sued by some of its former students for being an alleged scam. She said that some of the written materials had been lifted from other seminars. (Trump has generally denied being involved with any of the day-to-day operation of the seminars.)

Although the museum was open briefly to the public on Tuesday, at night it becomes a war room. American Bridge has 90 employees, which includes 12 staffers here who are conducting research as well as attending convention speeches to highlight any moments that are offensive or egregious or don't line up with the speakers' voting records—which is to say, they are very busy.

A virtual museum will be online at the end of the week, Mackler said, but looking at photos and reading descriptions of TRUMP: The Game won't quite do it justice. When I talked to Kevin McAlister, American Bridge's deputy communications director, he made an attempt to explain why the game was so strange—and it got me think that maybe it isn't just a bad product, but a window into the current state of American politics.

"It's like a crappy version of Monopoly," McAlister said. "First you roll the dice, and step two is literally just 'make deals.' There's no explanation of how you win or even what you're supposed to do. It's completely pointless, and you don't know it ends."

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