After Trump huffed and puffed and blew down first the straw house of the Republican primaries and then the slightly stronger stick house of the general election, we have to wonder if we have a brick house that will finally thwart him.

Theoretically, that brick house should be the Electoral College. If there is any purpose at all for the institution, it should be to ensure that someone like Donald Trump cannot become President.

I hope the Electors — or at least enough of the Republican Electors — understand that they have an opportunity that generally only presents itself to characters like Captain America or the Fantastic Four. They have the opportunity with a single act to restore hope to at least two-thirds of the American public, to save American freedom, and quite possibly to save the world. All they have to do is elect someone other than Donald Trump. It doesn’t much matter who it is — even the odious Pence or the repellent Ted Cruz would be improvements — but they have to elect someone. If they take the half-measure of failing to decide and throwing the election into the House of Representatives, it won’t help. The House, led by the Coward-in-Chief Paul Ryan, would almost certainly elect Trump in that case.

But the Electors aren’t going to save us, of course. The Electoral College is not going to be the brick house. In forty-eight hours or so, we’ll hear that Trump has been elected.

At that point, our only remaining hope is that the Constitutional limits on Presidential power combined with a few good souls among the Republicans in the Congress can with the help of activists and a vigilant press construct a house Trump can’t blow down. We have to hope this, and work to make it true.