From indifference to worry – range of reactions reflects a divided America

At a church on Oct 5 in a suburb of Washington, DC, where the pews are filled each week with dozens of active and retired federal workers, the weight of the government shutdown hung in the air.

- Audra D.S. Burch

Reverend Krishnan Natesan, pastor of Hemingway Memorial AME Church in District Heights, Maryland, delivered a sermon about holding on to faith and hope amid uncertain futures.

"People are under high stress," he said in an interview after the church services.

The day before, while travelling through Dallas Love Field Airport, Mr Mike Talbert, 66, an industrial supplies buyer visiting from Wisconsin, did not notice any effects on his travel and shrugged off potential consequences of the shutdown.

"It'll get figured out," he said.

As the first full week of the shutdown began, a split screen of reactions played out across the country.

Many people said they had yet to feel a significant impact aside from the closing of some tourist sites.

And many Americans have not experienced a change in their everyday lives.

Others, especially those in the federal workforce, were bracing themselves for layoffs or firings, seeing initial signs of economic fallout or anxiously wondering what was in store the longer the shutdown lasted.

And for still others, the shutdown felt like the latest twist of turbulence in a vortex of change as US President Donald Trump has dramatically reordered many aspects of American life.

Collectively, the reactions offered one more reflection of a divided America.

"It's a scary time - obviously we all want the best, but I feel like we're going down a very dark road," Mr Scott Nichols, 55, a real estate broker from Ellijay, Georgia, said as he stood outside a closed museum at the Gateway Arch National Park in St Louis.

"And it's not just political. Like, as a society we're a little broken right now."