Ars Technica:

For many in the US, expertise has taken on a negative cultural value; experts are part of an elite that thinks it knows better than the average citizen. (This is accurate, for what it's worth.)

The mentality behind the anti-intellectual, anti-expert phenomenon is human nature. And I don't mean to imply all experts are equal or even all worth listening to (Sarah Palin is probably an expert at something...maybe). But the current push back against expertise -- from climate science to economic analysis -- is coming from the same crowd who think Sen. Duh-Mint is a luminary hero for petulantly refusing to attend Obama's jobs speech, and herald Bachmann for saying she'll shut down the EPA.

There's no thought behind it, it's just frustrated people with little information seeing rebellion of any kind against the things that confuse them as a noble move.

In this state, they don't want education or even policy that makes sense, they want a characature (Lee, DeMint, Bachmann, Paul) to rally behind who will fight whatever they've decided is the cause of all of their problems.

Don't challenge them with your uppity thinkin' and 'splainin', just tell them how you're going to prank the high school principal and get all the math classes canceled.

And these people are the most likely to answer public opinion polls.