I think America has always been "anti-intellectual" in the narrow sense that it didn't have a large elite class like many European countries have, the prevailin

I think America has always been "anti-intellectual" in the narrow sense that it didn't have a large elite class like many European countries have, the prevailing attitude has usually been the "self-made man" as opposed to egghead. This may or may not be a bad thing (e.g. elite classes by their very nature are hard to break into). As far as I understand from your command, you tend to correlate the sentiment you call anti-intellectualism with the right-wing politics on the rise in the US (this is what I infer when you say "even NPR"). This, of course, is true, but is half the story. Many in what may be called left or liberals (again, very loose terms) also exhibit a form of this behavior. An old but interesting read on this matter is The Closing of the American Mind.