William Voegeli wrote an important book, Never Enough which I highly recommend.

In National Review he writes Why the Liberal Elite Will Never Check Its Privilege

Speaking of Orwell, his observation that all leftist political parties are “at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy,” holds up impressively after 75 years. An evil not really meant to be eradicated is, for instance, central to the global-warming crusade. Journalist Elizabeth Kolbert thinks the threat is grave, putting us in a “race toward planetary disaster,” but also considers the political effort against it thoroughly disingenuous. Most liberals, she argues, refuse to admit an inconvenient truth: The reduction in greenhouse gases necessary to reverse, halt, or even slow global warming will either prolong and worsen the misery of the planet’s poor countries or require Americans to reduce their energy consumption by more than 80 percent. Knowing that Americans have no interest in giving up “air travel or air conditioning or HDTV or trips to the mall or the family car,” environmentalists encourage the soothing fantasy that “climate change can be tackled with minimal disruption to ‘the American way of life.’”

HKO

This need for a cause you despise is another form of scapegoating.  A scapegoat is needed to identify one’s virtue, if not their very purpose in life.  A populist needs a demon more than a deity.  For 2,000 years the Jews in Europe were demonized as scapegoats, but were never destroyed in spite of periods of great and horrible anti-antisemitism.  They were hated, but needed.

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