Eh, there's more to it than this. 'Basic' is also the perspective that we're really just animals working to survive. That we're all just dipshits cluttering up the world while we attempt to assemble some kind of respectable way of living. No cynicism here - I feel a real kinship to others when I'm in this mood, rather than caught up in high-mindedness - which can be fun, too, of course.

I think the fact that she terms it 'basic' rather than 'anti-intellectual' makes it less reactionary - a baseline humanity that joins all of us. I think even the term 'American anti-intellectualism' is a misnomer, considering that ancient figures such as Jesus or Buddha were in this vein - preferring terse wisdom to chains of detailed jargon. They spoke in 'basic', in a way.