It’s been almost 10 years since Kanye West and Taylor Swift began to bicker. Remember? Beyoncé had just made one of the best music videos. OF. ALL. TIME. Here’s the timeline from then until now — the moment the Swift-Kanye conflict broke the fourth wall and entered DUH, DUH, DUH!

The Political Theater.

In case you missed it, this week Swift endorsed two Tennessee Democrats, caused a bump in voter registration, and made 4chan and r/the_donald do backflips off the internet cliffs all with a single Insta post. Then she doubled down while accepting an American Music Award, removing any doubt that maybe, just maybe, her account was hacked and she still secretly held an official #MAGA membership card.

West meanwhile went H.A.M. on Donald Trump’s desk, currently the Resolute Desk situated in the Oval Office.

Will #MAGA forces prevail in 2020? Will Kanye ever make another good album? Song? Can Donald J. Trump even name a single Taylor Swift number? This and so much more, next time on “Swift Winds From the West.”

Onward!

By George LeVines

This Week’s Podcast

“The Front Runner” is not going to tell you how to feel about politics. The new film, starring Hugh Jackman and directed by Jason Reitman and co-written by him, Matt Bai and Jay Carson, tells the story of the short-lived 1988 presidential campaign of Sen. Gary Hart, who went from being the presumptive favorite to win the presidency to political oblivion within the span of a few days, felled by the Colorado Democrat’s extramarital affair scandal. “You could see the seeds of politics we’re dealing with now,” says Carson, a former Capitol Hill staffer.

The central tenet of the film is that few people — the candidate, his staff and family, journalists, etc. — were prepared for what happened to Hart, and they made the best decisions they could at the time, helping to define the electoral and political process for years to come. “We’ve created a process that rewards a bit of shamelessness, that both attracts and rewards candidates that who will do anything to get or hold office,” Bai adds. Listen to our full conversation, including a partial interview with Reitman, on this week’s Political Theater podcast:

The Kicker