In his new book, Ben Shapiro argues that Western civilization is being picked apart by “scavengers.”

The quintessential manifestation of this, according to the author: Zohran Mamdani.

“Mamdani is sort of a platonic example of a scavenger instinct at work — his entire campaign is rooted in envy,” Shapiro told The Post. “It’s rooted in the idea that everyone is a victim of systems.”

In “Lions and Scavengers: The True Story of America (and Her Critics),” out Tuesday, Shapiro makes the case that the world is split between “lions” who uphold the values that make the free world great and “scavengers” who seek to undermine societies from within.

“The Scavengers are those who produce nothing, and demand everything,” Shapiro writes. “The Scavengers are those … who blame their own miseries, in free societies, on ‘systems of power’ that supposedly rob them of autonomy; who claim that failure is a virtue and success a sin.”

He points to Mamdani, the Democratic candidate in New York City’s mayoral race, and his supporters as the emoboidment of the latter.

“The Mamdani campaign is a great example of this — the sort of unification of disparate factions that really have very little in common with one another other than hatred of the system and desire to tear it down,” he explained.

Shapiro argues it’s up to the “lions” to stand up to scavengers who seek to undermine a free society.

The three principles which guide the lions’ mindset, he argues, are biblical in nature: There is a master plan behind the universe; you are made in the image of God; and you have true and meaningful moral duties in the world.

By contrast, the scavenger views the world as a purposeless place where your failures are the rust of corrupt power systems — and violence is the proper response to the conspiracy against you. 

“You can see that over and over and over, from the BLM riots to the campus protests-slash-riots,” Shapiro said.

Another quintessential scavenger, according to Shapiro, is alleged United Healthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione.

“He grew up rich,” Shapiro said. “And then he basically decided that he was a victim of the system and that, because the system itself was deeply flawed, that gave him the excuse to commit murder of a person he had never met.”

A great irony, Shapiro observes, is that scavengers are often the privileged children of lions themselves.

“So many people build community, build family, make the systems that make the West great stronger, and then they don’t pass that on to their kids in any way, shape or form,” he lamented. “They seem to think that … their kids will somehow imbibe the correct values from the water or from the air.”

He believes this was on full display during last year’s campus protests at Columbia University, when privileged students pitched an encampment in solidarity with Palestine.

“They’re being told by people online, by their friends, that their parents did something wrong, and that the system that they grew up in is deeply flawed,” he said.

The threat posed by scavengers, Shapiro believes, is existential. 

“It does not require a majority of a population of Scavengers for the Scavengers to take control,” he warns in his book. “It requires only a dedicated core group and a large majority of vacillating Lions unwilling to stand up and roar. All too often, the conditions for such coups are ripe.”

But he still holds out some hope.

“In the aftermath of BLM and October 7th and the riots on campus,” Shapiro said, “I do think that the Trump victory was a manifestation of the American people basically saying, ‘We’re done with this sort of envious view of how the world works.'”