Comedy. It’s a fixture of autocratic regimes. Dark comedy, sure. But comedy all the same.

On Friday, just hours before the first US jobs report of the post-Erika McEntarfer era at the BLS, Howard Lutnick took some time away from doing whatever Howard Lutnick normally does at seven in the morning to chat with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” a program for people who want to feel like they’re a part of the action in the fast-paced world of cut-throat capitalism.

Lutnick’s a sycophant’s sycophant and he not only knows it, he’s excited about it. That, despite being already rich and having exactly nothing to gain politically beyond the role he already occupies.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone embrace the sycophant role so enthusiastically as Lutnick. Howard’s a caricature of a caricature in that regard. His obsequiousness towards Donald Trump is such that it’d seem overdone even as a stereotype. If Lutnick were cast as a Dr. Evil minion in an Austin Powers sequel, they’d have to tell him to tone down the servility.

I’m not joking. At all. Earlier this year, Lutnick apologized, on air, unprompted, in real-time (as though he could feel Trump’s eyes on him), for suggesting he was an active participant in trade negotiations rather than a bystander lucky to be in the room to witness “the art of the deal” first-hand. This is the Commerce Secretary for God’s sake. He should be an active participant in trade negotiations. If he’s merely an onlooker, that’s a problem.

While speaking to CNBC on Friday, Howard actually said the following about the BLS now that McEntarfer’s gone:

So [the president] can’t replace somebody two weeks ago and expect fundamental change, but what you will get is an agency that’s on [his] side, just trying to do the best and put out the correct numbers.

To be fair to someone who doesn’t deserve it (and who wouldn’t reciprocate), Lutnick did try in that soundbite to equate a BLS that’s “on Trump’s side” with an agency that tallies statistics accurately. But it felt like an addendum. That is: It felt like Howard wanted to end that sentence with the word “side.” So: “…what you will get is an agency that’s on [Trump’s] side.” Period.

You could also argue — if you were determined to apologize for Howard — that he meant Trump’s on the side of “correct numbers,” so a BLS that does its job properly is a BLS that’s “on Trump’s side.” In both cases, all anyone wants is accuracy. But I think even the Trump voters among you will agree that’s a stretch — a tortured interpretation.

In the same interview, Lutnick made a quasi-prediction about the jobs reports going forward. “I think they’ll get better because you’ll take out the people who are just trying to create noise against the president,” he said, in the course of accusing Biden “holdovers” of “rooting against America.”

I realize I’m (mostly) preaching to the choir here, but for the minority of readers still in camp Trump, allow me to say, with the utmost respect for your sanity, that’s just nonsense from Lutnick. Wild, wild nonsense. There’s no truth to it. None whatsoever.

Lutnick probably wasn’t trying to make a prediction about Friday’s jobs report specifically, and it’s a good thing. Because the numbers weren’t flattering. At all. Trump blamed Jerome Powell. The screenshot below’s from TruthSocial.

As you can see, Trump’s Fed broadsides, just like all his other social media balderdash, are now framed by $50,000 bonus offers for ICE recruits.

The immigration enforcement ad in the screenshot links to ICE’s official government website where J. M. Flagg’s famous portrait of Uncle Sam is badly trimmed out of its original World War I recruitment poster and placed above a list of perks for enlisting in Stephen Miller’s war against illegal migrants.

As for the jobs numbers, they’re going to get better. So don’t worry about that. In fact, when next month’s tally is released by the BLS, we’ll discover that the hiring impulse was stronger than initially reported for August.

How do I know? Well, because Kevin Hassett told me so. Actually, he told CNBC. The network, oblivious to, or complicit in, the propaganda effort, invited Hassett on just hours after Lutnick.

Friday’s jobs report was “a little bit disappointing,” Kevin conceded. And then, this: “I expect it’s going to be revise[d] up.”

Coming full circle, the implausibility of this whole sordid episode — every facet of the Trump agenda as well as every utterance from Trump’s cabinet is implausible in one way or another — lends itself to comedy. But this is becoming a very dark stage production.

These people — this administration — are overtly nefarious. And in a way that, for example, Richard Nixon wasn’t even on his worst days. What you’re seeing from the likes of Lutnick and Hassett is regime propaganda in a literal sense of the term. This isn’t just “the sort of thing” you’d see in an autocracy, it’s that thing exactly.

Americans have to wake up. Seriously. If you’re trapped in this fantasy of Trump’s, you gotta let it go. Because it’s precisely what that annoying little voice in the back of your head constantly warns you it might be. It’s a fraud on the public trust and already in this second go around, it’s dangerously close to becoming something far, far worse.