If you look at Speaker O'Neil's history, the Democrats did not control both houses during some of those shutdowns. He did shutdown big parts of Reagan's agenda in the first years of Reagan's presidency.

The difference today is other people have audiences. So, instead of becoming the bastions of accuracy and fact checking, the NY Times, ABC, NBC, etc. have continued to be pundits. Washington hasn't changed one bit since the 1800 election, its the fourth estate that tries to influence instead of inform.