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<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>When he took the stage at campaign rallies across the country, presidential hopeful Donald Trump often had a piece of paper in his pocket, ready to go if the moment seemed right.<\/p>\n<p>On it was printed something unlikely: the lyrics to a song written in the 1960s by civil rights activist Oscar Brown Jr. Based on a fable, \u201cThe Snake\u201d tells the story of a kind woman who takes an injured snake into her home to nurse him back to health \u2014 only to be shocked when she is fatally bitten.<\/p>\n<p>In Trump\u2019s hands, however, Brown\u2019s words were imbued with a new and specific meaning.<\/p>\n<p>As the opening scene from the upcoming FRONTLINE documentary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/frontline\/film\/zero-tolerance\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Zero Tolerance<\/strong><\/em><\/a> explores, Trump recast the lyrics as an anti-immigration allegory \u2014 equating people seeking to enter America with killer snakes who would inevitably cause harm to those who welcomed them. Trump built to a crescendo around the song\u2019s last lines, an exchange between the dying woman and the snake:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saved you, I saved you, I saved you,\u201d cried that woman.<br \/>\n\u201cAnd you\u2019ve bit me, heavens why?<br \/>\nYou know your bite is poisonous and now I\u2019m going to die.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cOh shut up, silly woman,\u201d said the reptile with a grin.<br \/>\n\u201cYou knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s embrace of that comparison kicks off <strong><em>Zero Tolerance<\/em><\/strong>, a FRONTLINE documentary premiering Tuesday, Oct. 22, that investigates how the president turned anti-immigration fervor into a powerful political weapon. The film\u2019s opening moments depict Trump\u2019s use of \u201cThe Snake\u201d in such a way that it\u2019s never before been seen \u2014 juxtaposing the then-candidate\u2019s reading with stark images of men, women and children struggling to reach the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n<p>As the documentary explores, Trump\u2019s comparison of immigrants to killer snakes was just the beginning. He would go on to make opposition to immigration the signature policy of his presidency, using virulent anti-immigration sentiment to animate his supporters and fuel a political movement. He continued to recite the lyrics to \u201cThe Snake\u201d at several public events as president.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe tapped into something in a very profound way that began to redefine the debate in the political year of 2016 and continues to redefine the politics of the country today,\u201d Dan Balz of The Washington Post tells FRONTLINE in the above clip.<\/p>\n<p>Trump didn\u2019t do it alone. The documentary, from veteran FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team, tells the inside story of how an improbable group of outsiders \u2014 Stephen Miller, Jeff Sessions and Steve Bannon \u2014 became the driving force behind Trump\u2019s most controversial initiatives, as part of a grand anti-immigration strategy they would call <strong><em>Zero Tolerance<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Miller is the only one still left in the Trump administration, but the film shows how the trio\u2019s years of planning around immigration are still shaping decisions. <strong><em>Zero Tolerance<\/em><\/strong> is a must-watch look at how America\u2019s immigration policies \u2014 and the rhetoric surrounding them \u2014 reached this moment.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/frontline\/film\/zero-tolerance\/https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/frontline\/film\/zero-tolerance\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Zero Tolerance<\/strong><\/em><\/a> premieres Tuesday, Oct. 22 at 10 p.m. EST\/9 p.m. CST. Tune in or stream on PBS (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/frontline\/schedule\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">check local listings<\/a>), at PBS.org\/frontline and on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/pbs-video-app\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PBS Video App<\/a>. More than 30 interviews from the making of the documentary will go live on FRONTLINE\u2019s website in tandem with the premiere, in the newest installment of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/frontline\/about-frontlines-transparency-project\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The FRONTLINE Transparency Project<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div id=\"pg-139-1\" class=\"panel-grid panel-has-style\" ><div style=\"padding: 100px 0; \" data-overlay=\"true\" class=\"panel-row-style panel-row-style-for-139-1\" ><div id=\"pgc-139-1-0\" class=\"panel-grid-cell\" ><div id=\"panel-139-1-0-0\" class=\"so-panel widget widget_sow-editor panel-first-child panel-last-child\" data-index=\"1\" ><div class=\"so-widget-sow-editor so-widget-sow-editor-base\">\n<div class=\"siteorigin-widget-tinymce textwidget\">\n\t<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/frontline\/article\/watch-donald-trump-and-the-snake\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PBS.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When he took the stage at campaign rallies across the country, presidential hopeful Donald Trump often had a piece of paper in his pocket, ready to go if the moment seemed right. On it was printed something unlikely: the lyrics to a song written in the 1960s by civil rights activist Oscar Brown Jr. Based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cmgww.com\/music\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cmgww.com\/music\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cmgww.com\/music\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cmgww.com\/music\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cmgww.com\/music\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.cmgww.com\/music\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239,"href":"http:\/\/www.cmgww.com\/music\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cmgww.com\/music\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"c