Presidential executive authority is vast. There is much the president can do without permission from any single other person and it has only expanded in recent

Presidential executive authority is vast. There is much the president can do without permission from any single other person and it has only expanded in recent years during the administrations of Bush and Obama. He could put every Muslim American on the no-fly list (or anyone considered 'subversive', for that matter). He could send in the military/national guard to lock every American citizen who doesn't fit a particular criteria into interment camps. He will be ordering drone strikes. He can sign the death warrant of American citizens. He can authorize surveillance, order intelligence agencies to disrupt and try to destroy his political opponents. All of these are things that the sitting US president has done in fairly recent history solely by power of the executive branch. There are many things the president can't do alone, but there are many, many things he or she can.