Member-only story
Was The Patriarch Of The Bush Family A Nazi?
Are the wild accusations against Prescott Bush warranted?
When the internet came to prominence in the 1990s, the Bush family learned a lesson that continues to ring true today. If you are in the public eye, at some point, the internet will accuse you of being a Nazi. In fact, Godwin’s Law of the Internet states that “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”
The 1990s were an interesting time in America. The internet was shiny and new. Information was flying in every direction. Americans couldn’t decide whether they liked the Bush family or not. George HW Bush had been repudiated by the American public after a single term in office, but the country was gearing up to elect his son, George W. Bush, to the presidency in 2000. As later users of the internet would learn, the combination of politics, misinformation, and heated arguments will quickly give rise to references to Hitler and the Nazis.
This was an environment ripe for the insertion of references to Nazism. And inserted they were.
Prescott Bush, a Yale graduate, was an avid businessman who was involved in a number of ventures, including various investment banking gigs, a stint as a manager at US Rubber Co., and the head of the US…
