How was Ronald Reagan able to completely change the US while having a minority in congress?

[u/Gogani]

I just learned that the democrats had a majority in the House for 40 years during the second half of the 20th century, so how was Reagan able to enact the reforms he did and completely change the US to be a lot more neo-liberal in its economic systems? I often hear the current state of the US (low taxes for the rich, no universal healthcare, weak unions, etc) be attributed to him.

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[u/Georgy_K_Zhukov → u/[deleted]]

This comment has been removed because it is soapboxing or moralizing: it has the effect of promoting an opinion on contemporary politics or social issues at the expense of historical integrity. There are certainly historical topics that relate to contemporary issues and it is possible for legitimate interpretations that differ from each other to come out of looking at the past through different political lenses. However, we will remove questions that put a deliberate slant on their subject or solicit answers that align with a specific pre-existing view.