The election of Donald Trump saw the rise of extremist liberal views supported by the U.S. American cultural elite. In the weeks and months following Trump’s victory, many university campuses throughout the United States clamored for political correctness and the acceptance of minorities.

At the University of Califorinia, Berkeley, some students went so far as to throw fireworks and tear down metal barricades to protest an event where the conservative public figure Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak. Worse yet, when Yiannopoulos tried to return to UC Berkeley for a Free Speech Week, he was forced to cancel the event due to pressure from the university administration. Instead of protecting First Amendment rights, the university decided to position itself with liberal protesters rather than with the constitution.

Having strong views on political correctness and acceptance of minorities can be justified, but resorting to violence cannot. Universities are some of the most prominent cultural bellwethers in the United States. It is paramount that they remain unbiased and allow for open dialogue among students with different views.

Besides undermining their reputation as a marketplace of ideas, when universities allow for the domination of liberal extremist views, they create a state of what Italian publication Il Giornale chooses to call cultural madness. Cultural madness occurs when universities and society at large end up in conflict with general freedoms and longstanding cultural traditions in order to protect political correctness and select minority groups. In the case of UC Berkeley, for example, the university decided to take the side of speech-silencing protesters rather than protecting the First Amendment right to free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

The experiences of UC Berkeley are not isolated. In the past year, cultural madness in the United States has spread as far as children’s fashion. Nicola Porro, an Italian journalist, was with his family in Disneyland and upon venturing into the park, Porro’s daughter, a six year old, was told she must wear a bikini because, despite the young age, her “over the belly” nakedness could have offended the community.

In Western European culture, if a girl has not yet reached puberty, it is normal for her to wear only the bottom part of a bikini. The common line of reasoning is that there is no apparent difference between girls and boys at that age. Notably, in the same waterpark of this conservative enforcement were hundreds of women covered by burkinis.

There is nothing wrong with respecting the use and costumes of the Islamic world. Like any other religion, the U.S. should protect the right to freely express it and the cultural practices that come with it. What is wrong is that an iconic theme park is censoring a Western tradition while allowing the practice of another cultural custom, arguably one ideologically much further away from U.S. American traditions. There should exist equality of judgement when making decisions to ban something, especially when something is part of another society’s culture.

In synthesis, U.S. American cultural institutions seem to be unconsciously, or consciously, forgetting their own values and traditions. In doing so, these institutions are annihilating the very symbols and traditions that made Western society and culture more free.

The U.S. has gone crazy, and not because of Donald Trump’s election. It is because of the left’s response to the election.