On his November 8 Fox News show, in the middle of yet another conspiracy theory involving puppetry, the gold standard, and more, Glenn Beck explained to his viewers that radicals are now “unmasking” themselves, which he said was a sign of future “trouble.”

First, Beck cites MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell who did, in fact, refer to himself as a socialist during an appearance on Morning Joe. What Beck didn't take note of was that O'Donnell's characterization of himself as such isn't anything new. In an interview published five years ago,O'Donnell described himself as “a kind of practical socialist. I know we failed. A lot of our ideas have failed, so I'm not with them anymore. I'm willing to take from a grab-bag of stuff that works.”

Moreover, O'Donnell has explained that he is a “socialist” in the way that “we all are” because Social Security and Medicare are “socialist program[s],” not as an admission of being a “radical revolutionary,” as Beck suggests. In a September 17, 2010, interview with The Hollywood Reporter (via Nexis), O'Donnell described himself as “A practical European socialist which, as it turns out, we all are, if you know that Social Security ... is a socialist program, and that Medicare is a socialist program and that all economies of the world are mixed with some capitalism and some socialism and they just vary in their degrees."

Unless O'Donnell has access to a time machine, his description of himself as a “socialist” seems pretty consistent, and not a reaction to any current events as Beck implies.

Beck moved on to warn us about communists by noting a video the “Communist Party USA is now releasing” then showing a clip of this YouTube video, which shows various Communist Party USA members introducing themselves and affirming their communism. So here's the problem: if this video is evidence of the Communist Party USA being emboldened by recent events, this is the worst way possible of showing that. First, the video couldn't be something they're “now releasing” because it was posted to YouTube in July of 2009. At the time of this writing, this video has 38,701 views -- and that's after being featured on Beck's site TheBlaze.com and on his TV show.

But even allowing for that inflated traffic, it means that the video that heralds the coming out of communism in America has received a whopping 2,400 views per month since its release. By comparison, video of the adventures of Maru the cat has 4.4 million views over a similar time period. We have to ask: Why is Glenn Beck ignoring this threat to all we hold dear?