Actually the opposite is true. In many (Western) countries the head of state has zero actual power. The US president has some actual power, e.g. limited veto right on bills.
But compared to other countries that's still relatively few powers.
Also the power of Veto is one thing - but the power only to maintain the status quo is a pretty limiting thing.
A lot of people new to the US political process (that is, get consistently involved beyond simply voting, even more involved than voting in primaries), do not understand the slow pace of change is a deliberate feature designed-in from the start, not a bug. Normative slow policy change means it is just as slow to implement adverse policies as well, giving time for citizens to put in the effort and time to roll it back just as slowly. Hence Benjamin Franklin's "...if you can keep it" quip.
What we see as alarming, fast-paced changes today are the culmination of generations of dogged efforts at policy changes frequently made opportunistically rather than specifically goal-directed, incubating emergent adverse behavior given rise by generations of insufficient citizen participation assiduously maintaining the republic's edifice.
The US political arena has its version of Usenet's Eternal September, where newcomers arrive (often timed to presidential elections) in a fresh, eager batch putting in tons of time and effort, then ebb like the tide when they don't see the results they anticipated (forgetting Bismarck's dictum that "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.") within 1-4 years. Only a smattering remain to welcome the next batch. When life changes (job-related moves, children, extended family medical issues, etc.) enter the picture, it filters out even more (interesting relationships to explore here between most citizens unable to find stability navigating those life changes, and political participation). It's a stamina-oriented sport with results often measured in decades, and the work that produces real results is often very tedious and distinctly lacking glamor.
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fyi I didn't mod you down