The Scavenger Mentality

Ben Shapiro on Jun 11, 2025

As Los Angeles burst into riots this week over a federal immigration raid, one protester took to his social media channels to explain just what was going on -- why arsonists armed with Palestinian flags stood alongside vandals armed with Palestinian flags, why some masked protesters hurled rocks at police cars while others summoned automated Waymo taxis only to set them on fire. His explanation for the riots was lucid and fascinating. The riots, he said, were not about illegal immigration. Of course they weren't -- there are tens of millions of people living illegally in the United States right now, and President Donald Trump ran three times on removing them. No, said the protester; the riots were about something more.

"Wherever you're at," the masked and gloved protester explained, "we all have a common enemy. It is the same one everywhere you go. When you go down the street, there's the enemy -- there's the enemy that works for the enemy, who they all work under. So we all share the same common enemy ... From LA to Africa to Palestine to Vietnam, we all have the same enemy ... We all have to work in unison to fight that one enemy." One of his friends chimes in, "Capitalism, imperialism, Zionism!" The protester continues, "The more we can grow as a people, then the quicker we can get to this revolution, and overturn this motherf---er!"

This, in a nutshell, is what I have labeled, in my upcoming book, "Lions and Scavengers," the scavenger mentality. It seeks to build nothing. It seeks to tear down everything. From rioters setting cars aflame to fight the legal authorities on immigration in Los Angeles to students taking over universities in solidarity with the terrorist group Hamas, from criminals smashing storefronts in Paris to selfie-obsessed celebrities floating their way toward Gaza, the scavenger movement is about destruction.

Society, it turns out, is constructed on success. It is founded on achievement. It is reliant on those who actually believe that they are called to act in accordance with moral duty, that they are responsible for creating and innovating and building up the societies in which they live. These are the Lions.

And then there are the Scavengers, those who seek to tear down, who believe that their own failures are the fault of the society in which they live and that the only cure for inequality of outcome is evisceration of that society. Scavengers have taken hold of large swaths of the West -- from London, where you have a better shot of being arrested for a social media post criticizing Islam than for an assault on a Jew, to Los Angeles, where the Democratic Party will wink and nod at your criminality so long as you proclaim fealty to the Omnicause. And they show no signs of stopping or even slowing.

Unless they are stopped.

The fact that so many in power, in so many countries, feel the need to cater to the Scavengers is a sign of a deep societal sickness and malaise. And that malaise must end.

Trump is right to call out the National Guard to put down the rioting in Los Angeles. The law must be enforced, and those who violate it must be punished. Scavengers ought not be treated with any level of respect. They are not merely misguided do-gooders who have gone too far; they are malign actors who chew away at the foundations of the systems that nourish them. The Scavengers must be defeated. And only Lions can do that.

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Ben Shapiro is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of "The Ben Shapiro Show," and co-founder of Daily Wire+. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author. To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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