Former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who reveled in tormenting fellow Republicans for their alleged apostasies, has now gotten his comeuppance: He's been booted out as president of the Heritage Foundation, one of DC's biggest right-wing think-tanks. DeMint had shocked the political world when he resigned from the Senate to accept the Heritage post early in 2013, just months after he won re-election. Now, though, he's suddenly got bupkes—and plenty of his fellow Republicans are probably none too unhappy about this turn of events.
That's because, while still in office, DeMint founded an organization called the Senate Conservatives Fund that broke with traditional Senate decorum and waged war on Republican members whom DeMint branded as insufficiently conservative, like the late Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter (who soon thereafter changed parties). Going after sitting senators did not endear DeMint to his party's leadership, nor did the fact that the SCF also came to the aid of plenty of unelectable tea partiers, like Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell.
Despite his fraught relationship with the Senate GOP, DeMint could have been senator-for-life in solidly red South Carolina had he wanted to. Instead, he opted for Heritage, but as he drew the organization closer and closer to Donald Trump (DeMint had a big role in Trump's transition and even recommended Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court), the think tank's trustees grew displeased and gave him the boot. In a delicious twist, just days before he was finally fired—though after reports had already emerged saying he was circling the drain—Trump specifically praised DeMint as "amazing" in a speech to the NRA. Amazing indeed.