If you say the wrong thing, and people call you on it, and you demonize them and call up the mobs against them for it, then yes, it's bad.

The "ends justify the means" mentality has been the cause of many (most?) atrocities in history because it takes the assumption that one side just knows what's right without being able to recognize our own fallibility

Is it effective? I think there’s some confounding factors involved. For all we know the narrative made it worse and kept us on oil longer because companies tried to pump faster and drove prices down.