Why is this government shutdown so consequential?

The U.S. federal government has shut down for the first time in six years, and while budget fights in Congress aren’t a rare occurrence, many political analysts say this shutdown could look drastically different from those that came before. In particular, President Donald Trump’s pledge to fire thousands of government employees, alongside continued fighting between Democrats and Republicans over Medicaid subsidies, could mean this shutdown has much more dire consequences.

What did the commentators say?

Federal shutdowns have happened before, including a 35-day closure during Trump’s first term that became the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. But this event is “like no federal funding crunch before it,” said CNN . This seems to be “about far more than the classic feud over