It isn’t just that the Green New Deal proposes a 10-year plan for decarbonizing the American economy that would involve the kind of “war socialism” unseen since, well, World War II (a model the authors explicitly evoke). It isn’t just that it dismisses all worries about deficits or inflation with a Venezuelan insouciance, or that it seems lukewarm about any policy or technology that might be tainted by capitalism or disliked by progressive interest groups.

It’s also that the list of proposed policies for fighting climate change is filled with what even David Roberts of Vox, in the course of praising the Green New Deal, admits are “eyebrow-raising doozies,” with everything from universal health care to a job guarantee draped under the mantle of environmentalism. And that’s just in the official language of the (nonbinding, it should be noted) resolution: The Frequently Asked Questions that temporarily accompanied the New Deal’s rollout is even more striking in its green just means everything progressives want ambition.

So there’s a pretty easy story to tell here about why, if the Democratic Party makes the Green New Deal vision its own, that shift will empower climate-change skeptics, weaken the hand of would-be compromisers in the G.O.P. and put the kind of climate-change package that could win at least 51 votes in the Senate even further out of reach. And also possibly help Donald Trump win re-election.

But let me temper this critique by finding two positive things to say about the Green New Deal, which between them will add up to the single cheer promised in this op-ed’s title.

First, in moving somewhat away from the longstanding centrist emphasis on pricing carbon — via carbon taxes or a cap-and-trade system — toward a focus on direct spending, the left might be moving away from theoretical efficiency toward political feasibility.