An Excerpt from Lions and Scavengers 
By Ben Shapiro
(via The Free Press) 

I spent virtually my entire life in Los Angeles. I was born in 1984 in Burbank, California, a firmly middle-class suburb – clean, well-run, and friendly – in a 1,100-square-foot home with two bedrooms and a bathroom for six people.

As my parents became more observant in their Jewish practice, they sought an Orthodox community, and we moved to Valley Village, where we ended up on a quiet street in a 2,400-square-foot home. That’s where I spent the rest of my childhood. At the age of 16, I went to college at the University of California, Los Angeles.

When I came back from Harvard Law School at age 23, my sister introduced me to my future wife, then a junior at UCLA; she went on to graduate from UCLA Medical School. We both worked hard, and eventually we earned enough money to buy a condo, then a home, then another home in Valley Village. In 2016, we bought a gorgeous, historically preserved place in Hollywood – the house where Judy Garland had celebrated her 16th birthday party – and made renovations. This was supposed to be our forever home.

But things began collapsing.

They began collapsing because Los Angeles – and California more broadly – had spent two decades actively driving away Lions and lionizing Scavengers.

What do I mean by Lions and Scavengers?

Lions are people guided by the spirit of success, responsibility, and duty. The Lion understands that the universe is constructed by a set of rules he can discern. He thrills in his capacity to choose. He embraces his moral duties, revels in his responsibilities. When faced with a problem, the Lion does not complain about the unfairness of life: He seeks an answer.

The spirit of the Scavenger is the spirit of envy. The Scavenger is driven by a burning impulse: the impulse to escape his own failures and shortcomings by blaming others. The Scavenger believes that his own failure is the fault of the stars, and of the fates, but mostly, of the Lion. The Scavenger does not believe in an understandable universe in which success is the result of performance of duty; any such argument, he believes, is a guise for power, and power alone.

The Scavenger mentality has consumed LA in the form of disastrous policies: confiscatory tax rates designed to punish business rather than reward innovation; public policy treating homelessness as a right rather than as a plight; a brutal crackdown on the police’s ability to fight crime and public disorder; failing public schools; decaying public services.

My family felt the effects of these policies personally. Whether it was walking past drug addicts passed out face down in the gutter just outside the gates of our home or spotting open needles on the streets where we walked our children, the quality of life in Los Angeles declined slowly. And then rapidly. And then all at once.

When the COVID pandemic broke out, the state of California lost its mind. Everyone was confined to quarters for months on end. Schools and public parks were closed. Los Angeles became a ghost town. Then, after the death of George Floyd that summer, it burst into riots.

While the authorities threatened law-abiding citizens for congregating in private or public, Black Lives Matter rioters were allowed to run roughshod over the city. Police officers were villainized, told to stand down as the city burned. Videos of police cars burning on Melrose Avenue became ubiquitous. Looters smashed the windows of our local Walgreens and Foot Locker.

At night, after we put our kids to bed, my wife and I could sit in our living room and hear the sounds of helicopters and gunfire nearby. My business, The Daily Wire, had to be boarded up after rioters attacked it. That’s when my family decided to leave for Florida, and my company for Nashville, along with nearly 100 employees. The Scavengers won in LA, and we had to get out.

We’ve now lived in Florida for nearly five years. There’s a reason why so many people are relocating here. The state of Florida is geared toward protecting the fundamental foundations of a successful, civilized Western society.

When I was living in Los Angeles, I applied for a concealed carry weapon permit, on account of the enormous number of death threats I received daily. I went to the Los Angeles Police Department with a binder of documented threats and explained that the FBI had already arrested and jailed someone for threatening my life. Yet the LAPD denied my application. Their reasoning? The person was already behind bars, and none of the other threats had been acted on, so I had nothing to worry about. It was the very definition of a Catch-22.

This would never happen in Florida. Florida has been a constitutional carry state since July 2023, meaning that qualifying legal residents may carry concealed weapons without a government-issued license. This policy expands a “shall-issue” permit law in place since 1987 and reflects a broader cultural emphasis on self-reliance and natural rights. Combined with widespread respect for law enforcement, the result is an empowered citizenry and a well-funded, competent police force.

In Florida, security is treated not as a dangerous indulgence, but as a civic necessity. This is what a healthy society does: prizes individual autonomy and celebrates the fulfillment of personal responsibility.

And not only when it comes to crime. Florida elevates individual rights of all kinds, while California subordinates religious rights to progressive ideology.

In California, I was constantly worried that the rubric of antidiscrimination law would be used to punish schools – particularly religious ones – that failed to comply with left-leaning social policies.

For instance, a school could have state funding revoked for abiding by traditional religious standards with regard to sexual behavior. Of course, there would most likely be a legal response to a situation like that, but what school district or parent wants to be subjected to that kind of madness?

Florida, by contrast, has universal school choice: Taxpayer money follows students to whichever school they choose, including many private and religious ones.

California sees religion as something to be regulated and eventually broken – another institution to tear down. Florida sees it as a partner in building strong communities, and as a fundamental pillar of a civilized society.

And rightly so. Religion instills civilizations with a moral core. It helps explain why Lions fight for things: truth, duty, and God-given dignity. Scavengers unite only in opposition: against the Lion, against the “system.” The Scavengers tear down; the Lions lift up.

Why, then, have the Scavengers enjoyed such success?

Envy, a hallmark of the Scavenger philosophy, is an irresistible force. Politicians understand this reality, and they weaponize it. I will be your warrior against the person you envy, they promise. And I will eradicate your envy by punishing that person, who is the reason for your suffering.

Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s Democratic mayoral candidate, embodies this approach. His coalition believes that the West is exploitative and brutal, that it’s uniquely responsible for suffering around the world, and that punishing the rich and successful will advance the plight of the poor.

This is the driving force behind self-contradictory movements like “Queers for Palestine.” How can Mamdani supporters preach the wonders of Palestinian culture – which in Gaza means throwing gay people off of buildings – while simultaneously advocating taxpayer-funded gender transitions for minors?

The answer is simple: Both beliefs run counter to Western values. There is no undergirding philosophy to the Scavengers. There is only opposition to the thing that is, and that therefore must be destroyed.

The logical extension of this ideology is violence.

Consider Luigi Mangione, the alleged murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. According to Mangione’s defenders, Thompson ran a greedy, venal, and corrupt healthcare company. His coverage decisions led to people’s deaths. Thus, he is a murderer and killing him was just.

It sounds barbaric. And it is. But that’s the Scavenger logic: If the system is irredeemably corrupt and can’t be fixed from within, then violence is justified to tear it all down.

This is the most radical manifestation of the Scavenger mentality. And it’s spreading. Worse, it doesn’t need to reach a majority of the population to take control. All it requires is a dedicated core group of believers, and the complicity of everyone else.

That is exactly what has happened over the past several decades.

In direct and open wars between Lions and Scavengers, Lions almost always win, because Lions are warriors, while Scavengers are cowards.

But in recent years, defenders of the West have gone silent. Some, because they believed the battle had been won with the fall of Communism. Others, because they fell for the lie of Western sin, paralyzed by unfounded guilt for societal problems.

Any civilization that loses its confidence opens itself to predations from those who would tear it down, from within and without. And so the Scavengers have thrived – feeding on shame, elevating victimhood, and spreading anti-Americanism.

But perhaps not anymore.

In January of this year, I attended Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration. He pledged himself to a “golden era.” He vowed, “We will forge a society that is color-blind and merit-based…. We will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense.” He spoke about prosperity, pride, victory, and freedom. He spoke of the Lions.

I believed, then, that a new day was dawning. Seven months later, I still do.

The Trump administration has dismantled the edifice of diversity, equity, and inclusion – the core of Scavenger philosophy – and restored common sense.

On the foreign stage, deterrence has replaced hesitation, and strength has prevented chaos. Look no further than the decision to help Israel neutralize Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity. That singular act may have saved the world decades of violence and terrorism.

These policies are popular, and for good reason. The American people are tired of the idea that crime is a manifestation of the exploitation of the oppressed. They’re tired of the idea that the meritocracy has to be put to heel because of the evils of a white supremacist system. They’re tired of the notion that the “system” has somehow harmed the “marginalized,” simply because people demand decent, law-abiding behavior – equality before the law.

Could these sentiments fall out of favor? Absolutely. People forget. Prosperity breeds complacency. A single economic downturn, a single careless policy, and the Scavengers will retake power.

This isn’t only about civilizational Lions and Scavengers and the policy battles between them. It’s also a question of the individual human heart. For if we all have two impulses beating within us – the spirit of the Lion and the spirit of the Scavenger – then the failure of the Lions is the success of the Scavenger. And when Lions fail to pass down their values to their children, their children join the Scavengers.

Bred into unearned prosperity but taught ignorance and dependency, livid at the men and women who defend the very country they inhabit, unmoored from a civilization their parents refuse to defend, they become rabid, and seek revenge on those who left them adrift. They become the hellish mutation of a spent culture.

In each of us, the battle between Lion and Scavenger rages. Sin crouches at all of our doors. But we can conquer it. For the Lions to win requires no great scheme, no clever machinations, but rather courage, pride, responsible parenting, and constant vigilance.

We must not become creatures of envy. And we must deny the creatures of envy the ammunition of our unearned shame.

The Scavengers will never surrender. The battle will go on for the rest of time. But they cannot win. Unless we let them.