folk devil

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folk devil (plural folk devils)

1. (idiomatic, sociology) A person or type of person blamed by the public for various ills, as during a moral panic.
   • 1987 July 9, Steve Lohr, “Newcastle Journal: Half of England where jobs are as rare as Tories”, in New York Times‎, retrieved 27 February 2009:

     It may be true, as Fred Robinson, a senior researcher at Newcastle University said, "Many people view Mrs. Thatcher as a kind of folk devil.

   • 1996 December 18, Robert Verkaik, “‘Crash’ tackling”, in The Independent (UK)‎, retrieved 8 June 2014:

     "Every time things become problematic we start careering towards social causes and pick on a folk devil to attribute all evil."

   • 2013 October 20, Jesse Walker, “Conspiracies: Five things they don’t want you to know”, in Boston Globe‎, retrieved 8 June 2014:

     There is always a tendency, in the mainstream as much as the fringes, to blame real or imagined social problems on a folk devil.

• scapegoat; see also Thesaurus:scapegoat

• pariah; see also Thesaurus:outcast