When President Bill Clinton’s staff relegated Speaker Newt Gingrich to the back of Air Force One on an international trip, it went down in history as an epic taunt that triggered a government shutdown.

Mr. Gingrich was fuming after the long flight from Israel, during which the two never got to discuss their budget impasse, and after which he was made to deplane down the back stairs. His admission that the snub factored into his decision to shut down the government in 1995 earned him a cover of The Daily News, which depicted him as a diaper-clad toddler throwing a tantrum with the blaring headline “CRY BABY.”

The episode was considered one of the most enduring illustrations of just how ugly government shutdowns can get. Until now.

During the first government shutdown in nearly seven years, President Trump has used insults and mockery to try to bend Democrats to his will in ways that have no obvious parallel in modern history. At the same time, he is using the shutdown to make lasting changes to the federal bureaucracy to inflict pain on his political adversaries.

As thousands of federal workers faced mass layoffs and Americans faced critical service cuts, Mr. Trump on Thursday reveled in a threat to target what he called “Democrat Agencies” for temporary and permanent cuts.

“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” he wrote on social media.