Inside a morning show studio in Times Square, the molten core of capitalism, the former Sandinista mayor of New York confirmed he is running for president.

Outside, under the serene countenance of a 10-story Gap ad and a rotating neon one for the state-run Chinese press agency Xinhua, everybody was having an amazing time booing the hell out of him.

At the Good Morning America barricades, a contingency from East Brooklyn Congregations assembled, carrying signs (“Stop stealing from seniors”) protesting de Blasio’s slowness to build senior housing. Behind them, the New York City Police Benevolent Association (the police union, currently supporting the officer who placed Eric Garner in a lethal chokehold) climbed up on the stone steps with whistles and orange foam fingers, which read “LIAR.”

At first, competing chants:

“NO. FRIEND. TO LABOR.”

“NO. FRIEND. TO SENIORS.”

But eventually the entire situation melded into one big “LIAR” chant, subsuming a variety of other chants about inability to run the city and so forth, and uniting the people. Teen tourists put on foam fingers and joined in. A pair of women “on holiday” shouted “LIE-AHHR.”

Another family of tourists came up and asked not-quite-audible questions about what the protest was about (audible answer: “because he’s an asshole”), and one clad in a black Houston Rockets hat followed it up with “Why is he a liar?” Occasionally, people would walk up, ask what was going on, and laugh.

Setting aside Bill de Blasio, human man, and whatever critiques and commendations you may want to bestow upon him, and whether de Blasio has a chance (since you really never know), and whether there’s a real darkness in this kind of joy: People are having a lot of fun.