Puerto Rico reminds us that real political power happens on the streets

Never in the history of the United States has a government head in any of its territories been forced to step down owing to the masses in the streets. Such is the significance of what is unfolding at this moment in Puerto Rico.

The resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974 was a ruling-class project, inspired in large part to head off what's on display in Puerto Rico. Only Virginia suggests something similar historically; but that was before 1776. A century earlier, an alliance of slaves and indentured servants in the colony, with similar grievances to the people of Puerto Rico, rose up and forced its government to flee to neighboring Maryland. But the revolt was short-lived.

Also striking is the contrast between what's been going in Washington recently and what's taking place on the Caribbean island. The Democratic Party controlling the House of Representatives thought, naively, that it could remove a government by congressional navel-gazing. The Mueller hearings have proven to be a dud.

This in no way implies that I subscribe to that project. To the contrary. I'm on record saying that to impeach Trumpism requires impeaching the system that gave us Trump — capitalism. I'm only making the case here that what's decisive in politics is not what takes place in the hallowed halls of a parliament or a legislature.

Any progressive-minded person owes a profound debt to the people of Puerto Rico for teaching us what no high school civics class or even graduate university political science course can teach. Decisive in politics, again, is what takes place on the picket lines, in the streets, on the barricades and the battlefields.

As for the latter, think the U.S. Civil War. What did more to advance the democratic project than anything else in U.S. history?

I make no predictions about how developments on the island will advance. But the people of Puerto Rico have just graduated from elementary school — a necessary step toward higher education.

We all should be so lucky.

August H. Nimtz is a professor of political science and African American and African studies at the University of Minnesota.