COMEUPPANCE (noun): a punishment or fate that someone deserves: “he got his comeuppance.” Synonyms: due, retribution, requital, recompense, just deserts, deserved fate, due reward, just punishment, castigation, wrath, chastisement.
Beginning shortly after 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Sept. 10, 2024, in Philadelphia, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris gave former U.S. President Donald Trump what one of my Arkansas lawyer friends would call “a stand-up ass whipping.”
People saw it happen live, across the United States and throughout the world.
Wendell Griffen
Harris deployed her skills and discipline as a seasoned prosecutor to cut through Trump’s façade and expose his most unpleasant characteristics.
Dishonesty.
Bigotry.
Cultural and political incompetence.
Emotional immaturity.
Vicious idiocy.
Sociopathy.
Mental clumsiness and laziness.
By the time their 90-minute “debate” ended, Trump’s posture was slumped.
He had yelled numerous false statements. Debate moderators refuted some of them, including Trump’s lies that immigrants are stealing, killing and eating pet animals from residents of Springfield, Ohio, and that infants are being murdered after birth in states that protect abortion rights.
Trump praised Viktor Orbán, the tyrannical leader of Hungary, and repeatedly mis-stated the name of the Taliban leader with whom he supposedly negotiated the end of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
When Trump was asked twice by one of the debate moderators whether he regretted anything he did on Jan. 6, 2021, when his followers violently attacked U.S. lawmakers as they were officially meeting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, Trump refused to express remorse, contrition or acknowledge that his conduct contributed to the attempt by his followers to violently stop the peaceful certification process.
Trump did not renounce the position taken by his vice presidential running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, that Trump would impose a national ban on abortions if elected president.
“Harris exposed Trump’s smallness.”
Kamala Harris, with lawyerly skill, discipline and presence, got under Trump’s notoriously thin skin by commanding the stage, taking the initiative and calling him out so well that for the first time in his political career, Trump could not land a rhetorical counterpunch.
Political pundits will long remember Harris made two priceless retorts against Trump. Harris delivered this memorable line when asked to respond to Trump’s threat to prosecute and punish people who oppose his return to power: “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people, so let’s be clear about that.” Trump’s reaction was unmistakable.
And Harris began her response to a moderator’s question about U.S. support for Ukraine after Trump criticized Biden by delivering Trump a rhetorical memo: “Well, first of all it’s important to remind the former president, you’re not running against Joe Biden, you’re running against me.”
From the time Harris replaced Biden as the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, Trump campaign strategists unsuccessfully have tried to put her on the defensive. During the evening of Sept. 10, during a nationally televised debate viewed by millions of U.S. voters, Trump had his chance. Instead, Harris gave him “a stand-up ass whipping.”
She did what Trump’s previous political opponents (Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden) tried but were unable to do.
Mocked him.
Ridiculed him.
Chastised him.
Exposed his emotional, intellectual and political weakness.
Afterward, Trump did what few political candidates ever do. He showed up in the spin room and uttered these words to reporters who knew he was lying: “It was my best debate ever.”
Trump’s spin room effort cannot erase the truth. Harris exposed Trump’s smallness. He knows it. His campaign strategists know it. Independent voters know it. Leaders of other nations know it.
Donald Trump got his comeuppance in Philadelphia. And here’s the most galling aspect of that reality for him. Minutes after the debate ended, the Harris campaign challenged Trump to another debate.
In doing so, Harris served this notice to Trump: I am not finished whipping the britches off of you. For the sake of freedom, democracy and with clear memory of all the ways you have lied, insulted and mistreated the presidency, our nation and harmed the world, I will expose you every one of the remaining days in this campaign season. And you cannot stop it.
Wendell Griffen is a retired circuit court judge in Arkansas and serves as pastor of New Millennium Baptist Church in Little Rock.
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