Bipartisan reports reveal 'complete chaos' and 'logistical transportation meltdown' stranding thousands after Harris rally in Detroit

By 
 August 8, 2024

If the way that Vice President Kamala Harris has run her 2024 campaign is any indication of how she would govern the nation, the American people face certain chaos if she is elected.

The Harris campaign held an apparently hastily planned rally in Detroit, Michigan, on Wednesday that by multiple accounts ended in disaster as thousands of rally-goers were left on their own stranded and confused after the event, according to Breitbart.

Stealing a page from Republican former President Donald Trump's playbook, the Harris rally was held in a hangar near the airport, which necessitated the use of shuttle buses to bring attendees in from parking areas elsewhere, but poor planning by the campaign made it exceptionally difficult for those buses to return to pick people up afterward.

"Campaign staff has no idea what is happening"

Josiah Lippincott, a pro-Trump political scientist, attended the Detroit rally and later shared his experience with a thread of X posts in which he wrote, "Complete chaos after the Detroit Kamala rally. It has been 2.5 hours and people are still unable to find shuttles back to their cars. Campaign staff has no idea what is happening. Rally was held near a UPS delivery center so dozens of trucks are mixed up with the buses. Tempers are high."

He went on to report that a "Kamala volunteer just broke down into tears" over the situation, that the bus he was on was "nearly in an accident," and that he rode that bus alone since the driver refused to switch his pre-established route to other lots where rally-goers had gathered.

Lippincott also posted an aerial view of the rally site at a hangar "located on a spur off the main road" and the "turn around point for the buses" a moderate distance away on the two-lane service road. He wrote, "Add a bunch of freight trucks from UPS, confused campaign staff, and tired and hungry rally goers and you get complete chaos."

In a series of update posts, he also noted how he eventually convinced the bus driver -- whom he thinks he convinced to vote for Trump -- to change his drop-off spot, shared a video of the tight turn-around area that slowed the buses to a crawl, and shared pictures of hundreds of people walking, which he captioned, "There was no organization or signs showing rally goers how to get on the right bus. Total mess."

Lippincott also highlighted a row of "larger white buses" that were reserved for union members and elected officials brought in by the campaign, which chose instead to use smaller and older yellow school buses as shuttles for attendees, and also shared a video of a "Kamala campaign worker" who "got into a verbal and physical altercation with an attendee" that required police intervention.

"A logistical transportation meltdown"

Lest anyone dismiss Lippincott's account as slanted by his pro-Trump bias -- he insisted separately to a critic that he is not a paid "tracker" for the Trump campaign -- a remarkably similar account of the chaotic post-rally "meltdown" was shared by the overtly left-leaning Detroit Metro Times.

The author of that article, who was not shy about bashing Trump or his support for Harris, observed that the initially "jubilant" event was ultimately "soured with more than a dozen medical emergencies throughout the event, a curt clash between Harris and antiwar protesters, and a logistical transportation meltdown that left thousands of supporters stranded on the side of the road for hours."

"When the rally ended around 8:30 p.m., there appeared to be no coordinated plan to direct attendees back onto the buses that would return them to the various offsite parking lots recommended by the campaign organizers," the report revealed. "The situation quickly spiraled into chaos, with police giving conflicting instructions, hard-to-find buses stuck in gridlock traffic, and thousands of rally-goers left stranded on the side of the road as darkness set and mosquitos descended."

"It took Metro Times two and a half hours to get back to our car, following the more than three-hour rally. (And doors opened two and a half hours before that.) The Harris-Walz campaign does not appear to have a public-facing email to reach for comment," the article added.

Major local media outlet didn't report on post-rally chaos

Somewhat predictably, the supposedly neutral Detroit Free Press provided glowing coverage of the Democratic rally and highlighted Harris' attacks on Trump and the supportive remarks for her candidacy from several local and state-level elected officials and union leaders who addressed attendees.

That report did acknowledge the multiple medical emergencies and the anti-Israel protesters who accused Harris of funding and supporting "genocide," but made no mention of the post-rally chaos and stranded rally-goers, some of whom had to walk miles to return to where their vehicles were parked.

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