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Dear Clare

My girlfriend’s an American, and it seems we are indeed separated by a common language! She’s been campaigning for Hillary because she thinks it would be good for America and American women to have a female president. She says that she’s more a democrat than a woman, whatever that means, and so long as the Republicans don’t retain the White House she says she’s not that bothered who the next President is. After all, she says, it would be really good for the country, and for the ambitions of young African Americans, if Obama got the nomination.

However, when I said that, were I an American, as a white man I wouldn’t know whether to vote for Hillary because she’s white or for Obama because he’s a man, she went off on one about how every time we had sex it felt like she was being raped by a slave-trader.

How can I reclaim my bourgeois domestic bliss?

Robert

Preston

 

Dear Robert

Isn’t politics tricky! And you probably thought you’d be arguing about what colour to paint the kitchen! It’s not easy when broader issues come into conflict with personal relationships: I fell out with hubby over the carbon footprint of a mango(!)

However, I think the tension between you is based on what philosophers call a category error. If you really think about it, whichever candidate your girlfriend endorses she’ll still be voting for someone whose main aim in life is the destruction of the Caliphate, who wants to tear the skin off Arabia and steal the black blood of my people.

If you’re really committed to restoring equilibrium in the home, why not wire up half a pound of C4 to her phone and then send her a saucy text to get the bedroom side of things going? Or just run her a bath when she looks exhausted, or maybe book a weekend away?

Your smug liberal bickering makes me vomit.

Clare