To wrongly attribute all of the blame for some negative situation or outcome to one particular person, whether or not they deserve some (or any) of the blame at all. Once it was discovered that I played a part in developing the company's scheme that robbed millions of people of their pensions, the mainstream media made me the scapegoat for the whole thing. Instead of trying to make someone the scapegoat for this problem, why don't you spend that energy trying to come up with a solution?