WATCH: Elizabeth Warren Quickly Destroys Bernie Sanders’ ‘Revolution’ at Nevada Debate

Massachusetts Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is getting attention for obliterating former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg at Wednesday night’s debate, but few are talking about how quickly she disposed of Bernie Sanders and his “revolution.”

Substantively, Senator Warren retains all of the vulnerabilities that make her a less-than-ideal choice for the Democratic nomination, but her performance at the debate was tactically brilliant. She went on the attack early, and spared no one from the rain of rhetorical hellfire.

Bloomberg got the worst of it, as Warren burned him to an especially agonizing crisp over his refusal to release women from non-disclosure agreements, but even quasi-allies like Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar got taken out in the barrage.

The attacks were often unfair and misleading, but the message of this performance was clear: Elizabeth Warren is not messing around, and she won’t mess around with Trump. Being unbound by expectation — thanks in large part to the media erasure that followed her strong showings in Iowa and New Hampshire — probably helped her strategically, but her execution was nearly flawless. Anyone with nothing to lose can take swings, but Warren’s landed, and she took little in the way of return fire.

It’s tough to guess what effect this will have, whether Warren gets a bounce or Bloomberg sinks, but there were two moments that have gotten lost in the glare of Bloomberg’s political immolation, and which illustrate the vulnerability of the Sanders candidacy.

The first was during Warren’s shotgun blast at every candidate’s health care plans, during which she took a series of deeply unfair shots that included saying that Klobuchar’s plan is “like a Post-It note” — when Klobuchar has sponsored actual legislation to enact her plan.

But Warren also took on Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan — which was also her plan until a few months ago — with a rapid series of attacks on the Bernie Bro culture of Sanders’ campaign, the lack of any plan to pay for his proposal, and the fact that the plan can’t pass.

“Bernie has started very much — has a good start, but instead of expanding and bringing in more people to help, instead, his campaign relentlessly attacks everyone who asks a question or tries to fill in details about how to actually make this work. And then his own advisors say, yeah, probably won’t happen anyway,” Warren said.

Coincidentally, that response — during which you can literally see Sanders wince — took 30 seconds, the length of most campaign ads. Now, former Vice President Joe Biden and others have made versions of these critiques, but Warren’s volley was powerful because it was so tidily packaged, and because she’s a progressive, just like Sanders. Well, not just like him.

Warren’s second shot at Sanders was even quicker and more brutal, because it cut to the heart of the most compelling argument against Sanders as the nominee.

During a chunk of the debate that focused on the political toxicity of Sanders political self-identification as a Democratic socialist — during which he crankily rattled off the locations of his many homes and asserted that ownership of a “summer camp” is commonplace among residents of his state — Warren was asked why she calls herself a capitalist.

“You went out of your way to call yourself a capitalist, to separate yourself from Sanders],” moderator Chuck Todd said, and asked “Why?”

“Yes, because I am,” Warren said, then added “Look, Democrats want to beat Donald Trump, but they are worried. They are worried about gambling on a narrow vision that doesn’t address the fears of millions of Americans across this country who see real problems and want real change. They are worried about gambling on a revolution that won’t bring along a majority of this country.”

That one took 23 seconds.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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