The Green New Deal is the shiny new object in Washington. Rolled out last week by Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Senator Ed Markey (D., Mass.), the proposal is a grab-bag of policies that covers everything from creating “high-quality union jobs” to universal health care. It has been endorsed by four Democratic contenders for the White House and nearly 70 members of the House of Representatives. The fundamental charge of the Green New Deal is the “green” part: The U.S. is supposed to get to “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers.” Achieving such a goal (and doing it in just ten years) would require overhauling nearly every piece of energy infrastructure in the country. That’s where the Green New Deal parts company with the real New Deal — and, in fact, contradicts the achievements of the legislators who helped ensure rural electrification, and by doing so, helped set the table for America’s emergence as an economic superpower after World War II. Two pieces of New Deal legislation changed the shape and structure of America’s energy sector: The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 busted the big electric utilities that had a stranglehold on America’s electric grid, and the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 provided low-cost federally backed loans to electric cooperatives and other entities, which allowed them to build their own electric grids and be independent of the big utilities. Those laws helped slash electricity costs for rural customers and led to a broad dissemination of economic and political power across the country that was critical to the development of western and southern states. And that leads to my thesis: If the Green New Deal becomes a reality, it will dramatically increase electricity costs and concentrate economic and political power in big business and in Washington. In short, the biggest costs of the all-renewable-energy push will be paid not by urban liberals such as Ocasio-Cortez, who are pushing the Green New Deal, but by rural Americans who probably voted for Donald Trump.