Five corrupt, on-the-take Republicans on the Supreme Court, however, shattered that understanding when they handed down Citizens United. Once political power could be bought openly, the incentive structure in American politics changed. Those moments illustrate the multiple layers of the lies Republicans have been selling us for four decades, as well as the new ones Trump is trying to get away with. For four decades, Republicans have lied relentlessly about taxes, promising that tax cuts for billionaires would lift working families even as wages stagnated and wealth exploded at the top. M. Scott Peck warned decades ago that social systems built on lies eventually lose the capacity to distinguish reality from fantasy, loyalty from morality, or raw power from truth.