As the election draws near and people consider the pros and cons of the two major candidates, I have to confess: For me, one event stands out in bright lights, one that I cannot forget — and it is Jan. 6, 2021. I’m not thinking so much about the violence that broke out on that day, terrible as that was. Those actions were quickly condemned by people from across the political spectrum, by Democrats of course but also by Republicans such as then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and Sen. Lindsey Graham (South Carolina).

To me, the most frightening aspect of what happened on Jan. 6 was not the event outside the Capitol but the one inside it — after the violence had ended and order had been restored. The House reconvened that night to certify the election results that had been sent forward from the states. Remember, this was after dozens of objections in many of the states had been considered and rejected and dozens of court cases had been filed and dismissed. After all those legal procedures had been followed, after a violent assault on the Capitol, Donald Trump and his allies still urged his supporters to reject the results, reject electors, and in effect nullify the election. And a majority of House Republicans — 139 of them — readily assented and voted against certifying the election. Had they had enough votes, well, we don’t know what would have happened; it’s possible Trump could have managed to stay on as president.

Let’s also not forget that Trump pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to misuse his role as the person who presides over the counting of the electoral college votes. That job, explicitly laid out in the Constitution, is a ceremonial one. Trump wanted Pence to claim for the first time in American history that he had the authority to reject electoral votes, singling him out to such an extent that the mob outside the Capitol chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” Trump repeatedly attacked the vice president on social media. Had Pence done what Trump had asked, America would have faced a constitutional crisis, and it’s unclear whether Joe Biden would have taken office two weeks later. As George W. Bush said of the day, “This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic.”

This history is worth repeating because, sometimes in life, a single choice at a crucial moment reveals character. Leaders of nations often face such tests of greater or smaller magnitude — Mikhail Gorbachev decided not to use force to hold together the Soviet empire, Lyndon B. Johnson supported civil rights bills even though he knew that it would shatter the Democratic base in the South, Al Gore gracefully accepted the controversial Supreme Court decision awarding the 2000 election to George W. Bush. Trump faced such a test and failed — while Pence, it’s worth noting, succeeded with flying colors. Not only that: Trump has never shown a moment’s doubt or remorse about asking Congress and his vice president to overturn the election. In fact, he has continued to wish that they had found some way to let him stay in power.

As Trump’s base quickly returned to him and his support grew, many of those who had denounced the violence reversed course and jumped back onto his bandwagon. Businesses that said that they would never support candidates who were election deniers somehow forgot those pledges. Billionaires who had spoken out as a matter of conscience went silent for a while and then found their way back to Mar-a-Lago, hoping to curry favor with a man who was increasingly the Republican front-runner. Some still condemn the violence, even wish Trump had done more to stop it, but say nothing at all about the action at the center of that day that took place after the violence: an attempt to overturn a free and fair election.

The father of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, famously constructed a system in which there were many checks and balances to prevent the accumulation of power or the rise of a dictator. “If men were angels,” he noted, “no government would be necessary.” But Madison understood that it wasn’t enough to simply devise institutions. He explained that he hoped “that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom.” If not, “we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks — no form of government can render us secure.”

We might be about to embark upon an experiment to see whether our institutions, checks and balances can hold, even when leaders try their best to bend them.

Email: fareed.zakaria.gps@turner.com.