Michael Jamal Brooks was an American talk show host, writer, political commentator, impressionist, and comedian. While co-hosting The Majority Report with Sam Seder, he launched The Michael Brooks Show in August 2017 and provided commentary for media outlets, making regular appearances on shows such as The Young Turks. Brooks was a self-identified progressive and democratic socialist.
Brooks began his career in comedy and meditation, founding the Valley Arts Project and coaching seminars at Sati Solutions. In 2011 he co-authored a meditation guide The Buddha's Playbook with Josh Summers. His early journalism and hosting work include his contributions to CivicActions, Talking Points Memo, and The David Pakman Show. Upon returning to New York City in 2012, Brooks met Sam Seder, and Seder was “immediately struck by his intelligence and his sense of humor and decided to hire him despite his ominous warning that he’s ‘not great with details.’” That year, Brooks began working for The Majority Report with Sam Seder. Along with many other colleagues, Brooks criticized MSNBC for firing Seder over a tweet that he had made in 2009. Brooks hosted INTERSECTION for Aslan Media and was an analyst for the American Iranian Council. Brooks was known for his mixture of political analysis with comedy. As Bhaskar Sunkara explained, "Michael wasn’t afraid of controversy – he was happy to give an outlet to guests who criticized the Left’s less productive pieties. But he wasn’t a shock jock either. Michael could 'get away' with controversies because of how he mixed his comedy with earnestness." Sam Seder explained, "I have worked with a lot of great broadcast hosts and some of the most talented comedians in the country, and what was unique about Michael was not just his intelligence and insight into politics, particularly foreign politics, but his ability to do genuinely brilliant political comedy." Brooks began co-hosting 2 Dope Boys and a Podcast in 2016 and announced in 2017 that he was starting The Michael Brooks Show. The podcast, which was broadcast live on tour from a variety of venues around the United States, reached 131,000 subscribers. It included interviews with Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Adolph Reed, and Slavoj Žižek. In 2019, Brooks argued that Turkey's response to the Syrian Civil War under Recep Tayyip Erdogan was partly an effort to erase Kurdish culture in northern Syria. Having first heard of Lula da Silva in 2003, Brooks began reading BrasilWire every day during Operation Carwash and the Lula Livre movement in order to deliver updates to viewers. In January 2020, Brooks travelled to São Paulo to interview Lula da Silva alongside BrasilWire editors Daniel Hunt and Brian Mier. Brooks also wrote the foreword to the 2018 book Year of Lead: Washington, Wall Street and the New Imperialism in Brazil, also by Hunt and Mier, which documents the rise of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. From April 2020 until his death, Brooks had been co-hosting a podcast called Weekends with Ana Kasparian and Michael Brooks, a collaboration with Jacobin. At the time of his death, Jacobin was planning to launch a second weekday webcast, The Jacobin Show, with Brooks as host. Brooks contributed to various publications, including HuffPost, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, In These Times, Good Worldwide, Al-Monitor, openDemocracy, Jacobin and Jadaliyya. He appeared on various networks and shows around the world such as The Young Turks, HuffPost Live, Al Jazeera English, France 24, Novara Media, CCTV, Rising and Hear the Bern, the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign's podcast.
''Against the Web''
On April 24, 2020, Brooks' book Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right was published by Zero Books. The book is a critique of the popular figures associated with the intellectual dark web. It also argues that a focus on deplatforming has harmed the left's ability to organize, drawing upon Mark Fisher's essay "Exiting the Vampire Castle". Writing for Jacobin, Luke Savage called the book a "model blueprint for countering the reactionary narratives ascendant in the smoldering ruins of the neoliberal order." In his review for UnHerd, James Bloodworth called the book "the most substantial critique of the IDW and its brand of 'classical liberalism' to date."
Death
On July 20, 2020, Brooks died unexpectedly at the age of 36. A press statement said that the cause of death was a "sudden medical condition". On The Majority Report, Brooks's sister, Lisha, said the cause of death was a blood clot in Brooks's throat. The statement indicated that a foundation dedicated to his work would be forthcoming.
Reactions
Tributes were paid to Brooks by his Majority Report and Michael Brooks Show colleagues, as well as a range of political commentators from other platforms. The former President of Brazil Lula da Silva expressed his condolences, writing on Twitter: "My heart and prayers go to his family and friends. May his passion for social justice be remembered and inspire people around the world." Jane Sanders, wife of Senator Bernie Sanders, also wrote that Brooks' "work on behalf of justice, humanity, and peace and his compassionate intelligence was impressive. It will live on through many he inspired."
