Soaring high above Scranton, Air Force One carrying President Joe Biden looked like a flying piss ant in the sky.

Look at the picture of the plane I took Wednesday.

Think for a moment about the infestation of publicly funded White House staffers about to land and tell me you don’t feel like bugs are crawling over you.

Here’s the official White House list of taxpayer-funded pests who made the trip “home” with Biden:

“Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania

Bruce Reed, Assistant to the President & Deputy Chief of Staff

Jen Psaki, Assistant to the President & Press Secretary 

Sasha Baker, Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for Strategic Planning for the National Security Council

Ashley Williams, Special Assistant to the President & Deputy Director of Oval Office Operations

Stephen Goepfert, Special Assistant to the President & Personal Aide to the President

Travis Dredd, Special Assistant to the President and Trip Director

Dan Cluchey, Senior Presidential Speechwriter

Elizabeth Jurinka, Special Assistant to the President & Senate Legislative Affairs Liaison

Meghan Hays, Special Assistant to the President & Director of Message Planning”

The American people own the company for which they all work and Biden’s an expert at ruining our company picnic.

The people own the democracy. The people pay the taxes. The people are supposed to run the show. But we don’t matter to Biden and his political acolytes who bow down to his power and glory at our expense.

Scranton can’t even keep lit the multicolored LED lights in the massive “Electric City” namesake symbol mounted on the roof of an architectural wonder located on Courthouse Square.

The building is vacant, too.

Until a few weeks ago, the lights were on but nobody was home.

Now even the lights are off.

I sensed bleak darkness as I waited for the traffic light to change on Adams and Linden on my way home from Biden’s speech.

Like it or not, darkness, not light, still defines Scranton.

Biden has used Scranton and its people for his own selfish political purposes for his entire political career. And the people here refuse to see his manipulation. National, state and local elected and appointed officials welcome his sentimental pining, wallowing in shallow storytelling that makes a stereotypic laughingstock out of our proud history as a city. They willingly help Biden turn his time in town as a child into an adult tale of victorious Scranton values.

We’re nowhere close to winning here. Or there, for that matter, wherever you live. From sea to shining sea we lack the leadership to progress and strengthen our nation and its people.

Is democracy as we know it doomed?

Maybe.

Shady and gloomy as the once powerful symbol of my Electric City that now sits dark atop an empty Scranton building, will the last one out of my nation please turn out the lights?

If nothing else, cutting back on power will help with climate change.