polishing the turd

Wasting your time by trying to turn something completely worthless into something that looks good or works well;

also.

trying to hide the deficiencies by dressing up the outer layer

Wasting a lot of time working on something that is too broken or worthless to fix.

To attempt to put a positive spin or light on something that is clearly shit.

To fix, repair, repaint, shine or do other things to something that isn't worthy - but you have to do it for one reason or another. Because the basic fact is no matter what you do to a turd - polish it, paint it, give it bling - it's still a turd, and there is nothing you can do about that underlying fact.

This is often encountered for people who restore antiques, or who work in older buildings or on old machines. It may not be practical to replace a piece of crap, and polishing a turd may be all you can do.

Polishing A Turd is different from nigger-rigging because nigger-rigging is just to get something operational with little regard to how it looks or runs in the long term. Polishing A Turd involves making something look and operate as best as it can, although both may be major problems because it was a piece of crap to begin with. A Rolls Royce can be nigger-rigged, but you would not call it polishing a turd (unless it is a real ghetto cruiser). Putting new tires on a Yugo and filling its gas tank is polishing a turd.

Methodology behind which junk mortgage backed securities were sold as AAA+ rated investments by Wall Street

A white girl or woman projecting contentment, happiness or even smug self-satisfaction with her life choices, despite the nagging fear that hooking up with Tyrone, resulting in her having an Amerimutt mixed raced child was not in her best interest. Never-the-less she continues with the facade, with smiles and even perhaps marriage, while she watches her girlfriends land high status white men and produce fair skinned, flowing haired children with higher IQs.

Despite your best efforts, there are some things you just can't fix/improve.

To point out futile attempts to conceal/change the baisc nature of something.