It is a commonly accepted piece of folk wisdom that you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. You can dress something up, but it doesn’t change what it is. I was reminded of this old maxim while watching the vice presidential debate the other night. JD Vance spouted a litany of lies to support Trump and his policies to try to make Trumpism a seemingly normal way of life if he gets elected. But it didn’t pass the smell test.The more Vance tried to paint Trump’s absurdly cruel un-American policies of waging a war on women’s rights, the mass deportation of immigrants as somehow palatable, and the overthrow of democracy for anarchy acceptable to voters, the more smeared the lipstick got. On top of that, Vance’s inexplicable inability to answer Walz’s straightforward question, “Do you believe Trump lost the 2020 election, yes or no?” lost him the debate right then and there.Vance is a polished debater and a smooth operator, but when push came to shove he was unable to answer the most fundamental question about the one issue that still fuels the racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic base that believes Trump somehow actually won a certified election he obviously lost. This is Trump’s Big Lie.