It is difficult to overstate the gravity of what President-elect Donald Trump can do with his newly-minted power to commit crimes using official presidential powers with impunity — not to mention the horrors laid out in the 900-page Project 2025 transition plan for reshaping the federal government. Many Americans are understandably frightened by the potential reach of his vindictiveness.

But Trump can hardly turn the country into a dictatorship with a few strokes of a pen. The courts are still working in America. The sprawling federal bureaucracy is formidable. And presidents do not control the individual states.

Although the far-right Supreme Court majority in Trump v. U.S. created criminal immunity as a gloss on Article II of the Constitution, that provision affords presidents only a confined list of powers.

The president is commander-in-chief of the Army, Navy and state militias when they’re called into active federal service, and he can commission federal military officers. He can also “receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers” and pardon federal crimes. He can make treaties, and appoint ambassadors, agency heads and Supreme Court justices with the advice and consent of the Senate. And he “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” — except that, thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts, he is immune from prosecution if he uses these powers to commit crimes.

But bear in mind that, compared to those of Congress, the president’s express constitutional powers are limited. His powers over foreign affairs and immigration come from Supreme Court cases finding that........

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