Eh...I mean, the president does have an extreme amount of power. Congress can write a law and the president can basically just say, "Nah. Not gonna enforce it." Or the opposite: he can just tell his agencies to enforce shit that has nothing to do with the law (legal punishments are only a tiny portion of the violent abuse of police and the prison-industrial complex and other state business). Presidents have historically seized all kinds of power for the office without effective challenge/opposition.

But it's true that executive orders just saying, "I'll do what Congress has asked me to do," are not the wins that donkey fans want to make them out to be. And ones that are reactionary are nothing to brag about. And it's also true that even ones that would conceivably do some good aren't likely to do much past the current moment or the one president's term of rule. Though ordering the Department of Education to forgive all student loans would certainly be a good thing for a generation or two of working-class students, even though it wouldn't be nearly as good as shutting down the student loan industry completely like some actual legislation could.

He liberal hypocrisy, of course—especially when the president is on their team—is to turn their heads and ignore when he uses his power for terrible shit, and to shrug and throw up their hands and pretend he has no power at all when he doesn't use it for good stuff.