In the abandoned City Hall subway station, Zorhan Mamdani, his hand on two Qurans held by his wife, Rama Duwaji, was administered the oath of office by New York State Attorney General Letitia James. He then signed the leatherbound book kept by the Clerk of the City of New York of the signatures of mayors. Love him or hate him, he is now the Mayor of the City of New York.

What will happen next will be an experiment. It’s hard not to find him charming and charismatic. He is a damn likeable fellow, which can’t be said for a great many people who hold office. But he has promoted a litany of changes that are unlikely to work as they depend on a fantasy understanding of economics and human nature.

Or maybe he can make them, or at least some of them, happen and it will turn out that they benefit a significant swath of New Yorkers who are in desperate need of a better, easier, path to survival in the Big Apple. For those who don’t know, as magnificent as New York City can be, it’s not always an easy place to live.

I wish him well, not because I am in agreement with his ideas or proposals, but because New Yorkers depend on a functional government for their education, jobs, transit, safety and survival. If Mayor Mamdani fails, New Yorkers will suffer, and I would never wish needless suffering on anyone.

The downside to his success is that it will embolden the left-most wing of the Democratic Party to eschew liberalism in favor or progressivism, capitalism in favor of socialism. Make no mistake, Mamdani is what is oxymoronically called a Democratic Socialist, which is a socialist sweetened to make it at least minimally palatable. I am not a socialist, even though I believe in the need for, and propriety of, a social safety net as a necessary component of functioning capitalism.

If Mamdani succeeds, others will point to him and shriek “See! SEE!!!” Will that mean that the Democrats push the pendulum back to the left fringe, where we’re muttering land acknowledgements and engaging in racial discrimination by reinventing the definition? Perhaps. There remains no clear indication of what the alternative to Trump and his MAGA faithful may be. Mamdani will be the hero of the left if he succeeds, and his supporters across the nation will be able to point to his accomplishments as the future of the Democratic Party. And they will likely be no more tolerant of liberal heresy then than they were during their halcyon years following the killing of George Floyd.

Much as I wish Mamdani success, I cannot, and do not, wish to see the alternative to Trump, and his successor, Don Jr., to be the nouveau empowered woke. And yet, I can’t wish Mamdani anything but success for the sake of New York City. For better or worse, it’s Mayor Mamdani’s opportunity to serve the people of New York City, and  I pray he does so well.