scapegoat ,
whipping boy

Like the world, he needed a whipping boy too, if only himself.

God, we've gone so long as your whipping boy, but now you've done it good.

One would like to believe coaches do not sit around thinking, "Who can be my whipping boy?"

It is no fun being a target, a whipping boy.

He'd be back in the game again, a player, and no one's whipping boy.

I don't think the public sector is being made a "whipping boy".

And please notice that Earth is being used as a whipping boy in this.

"Trade and globalization have become the whipping boys for these issues, whether they are related or not."

The Democrats, out of power, won't make a convenient whipping boy.

Opinion writers seem to need him as a favorite whipping boy.