Diana Morant, a political outsider
- Marc Llinares Codina
- Mar 13
- 5 min read
Do you know what an outsider is?
You see, I am Valencian and where I come from the word forastero is not used for foreigners or migrants. These are “de fora” or “de per ahí”, that is, from outside or from around, but not forasteros.
Forastero is a much more interesting concept. Not long ago my grandmother told me seriously “the PP candidate from the village can never win. If he is a forastero!”. As I say, this was my grandmother's comment from Beniarjó about the PP candidate, who was from Gandía. For those who do not know the distance between the two municipalities is about 6 kilometers.
We are not here to discuss the concept of outsider and the nuances or interpretations it may have in everyday language, no. We are not here to discuss the concept of outsider and the nuances or interpretations it may have in everyday language. But it is important to understand that an outsider can be the neighbor from the next town to understand what this article will discuss. Diana Morant, the Socialist Party (PSPV) candidate, is a political outsider in her own land.
To explain this position it is first necessary to present the idea of the we (and they) and how this concept is related to the linguistic market and, therefore, to the political market.
The German psychiatrist Fritz Künkel in his work “The Psychology of We” put forward the we as a behavioral idea shaped by the persons themselves in their condition of subject and object simultaneously. The person as “Subject” is free and creative and determines his will while as “Object” he is unproductive, lacks freedom and is subjected to forces outside his will.
Both dimensions are balanced through the we, where the person has the obligation to be the subject of his own conduct and the object of all the consequences that have originated his conduct.
In this sense, the we becomes a proper and organic entity of which people are simultaneously a passive and active part. The French linguist Émile Benveniste posits that if the “I” refers to the speaker of the sentence then the “we” is not a plural of the I but an extended I (as he stated in the 1946 lecture “The Structure of Person Relations in the Verb”).
Künkel also affirms that people have a vital dialectic that consists in their permanent confrontation with reality. The author differentiates between the internal and external aspects, the latter referring to the confrontation of the individual with the outside world, and although Künkel does not state it, both dimensions form the “we”.
In line with what has been stated, internally we decide who we are and externally we reaffirm the self and add it to the related collectivity. Creating the we.
Once we have the we, we must understand it as a linguistic and political product in constant dispute. Who are we? Who are they? All political parties try to take ownership of this concept, “we the Spaniards”, “we the Catalans”, the Europeans, the good Spaniards, the left-wing people, etc.
If we look at it from a commercial point of view, every voter is a potential client and as such it is necessary to offer him a satisfactory product, a satisfactory us. The “we” as a political product must be understood as something in constant movement, as a living thing that evolves according to the public debate, that is, the linguistic circulation.
In his work “What does it mean to speak?”, Bourdieu states that “the origin of the objective meaning that is engendered in linguistic circulation must be sought first of all in the distinctive value resulting from the relationship acted by the speakers, consciously or unconsciously, between the linguistic product (...) and the products simultaneously proposed in a given social space” therefore “what circulates in the linguistic market is not language, but stylistically characterized discourses”.
In short, the we is a linguistic and political product in constant circulation in the political market. Once this is understood, Why is Diana Morant a (political) outsider in her own land?
The answer is very simple, because Diana Morant is not in the political market of the us she aspires to represent. In other words, Morant is not present in the Valencian public debate, neither substantively (who) nor discursively (what).
The antagonistic face of Carlos Mazón after the DANA disaster has not been the leader of the PSPV but Pilar Bernabé, the government delegate. Morant is not there substantively because her position as minister ties her to Madrid, and neither is she there discursively because it is Ms. Bernabé who is putting up a fight.
When debating where Mr. Mazón was or was not, when discussing what response should have been given or how it should have proceeded, or even when the opposition is asked whether Mazón should resign as President of the Generalitat, it is not Mrs. Morant who the press and the public are looking at, but Mrs. Bernabé.
What relationship does Morant have with the people she aspires to represent? After the DANA disaster, it is not enough to be Valencian. Morant has not been present every day in post-DANA Valencia, nor has she faced Mazón's version changes every day, nor has she appeared in the press with mud-stained boots.
Morant is part of the oligarchy that Michels talked about. Sánchez's intention to monopolize regional power in the Council of Ministers has led in this case to a disconnection between us, the affected and shocked Valencians, and Diana Morant, the distant politician who has not been there. And if she has been there, Bernabé has overshadowed her.
Precisely to try to reverse this situation and introduce herself into the Valencian political discourse, Morant and her team put forward the idea of a motion of censure. It should be said that not so long ago Morant herself dismissed this idea claiming that it was not the time nor would it go ahead because of the votes against VOX (something that few of us understand). Now, without having changed the situation, Morant is open to this possibility, which has allowed him to enter (briefly) in the Valencian political and public debate.
In the first scene of House of Cards Frank Underwood makes it clear, the important thing is “location, location, location”. Here it is not about being near the center of the photo with Mazón, but in the photo of those who oppose him. Who is not in the photo, is a political outsider, and Diana Morant is not in that photo.
What is a political outsider? One who is neither here, nor expected, nor sought after. A political outsider invisible in the public debate of those he aspires to represent. One without a “we” to be part of.
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