The Conservative Revolution 313Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in November, 1993 , which set up a free
trade zone or common market consisting of Canada, Mexico, and the
United States. Despite congressional objections, he also provided bil-
lions of dollars in aid to Mexico to help its troubled economy. Many
labor unions objected to NAFTA for fear of losing jobs to the poorer
paid workers in Mexico.
The latter h a lf of the twentieth century witnessed additional
and profound changes in American life and activity. Because of wars
and the attraction of cheap labor in the southern and western states of
the nation, a shift in population to those areas resulted, creating what
was called the Sun Belt. A great number of people along with a good
deal of economic activity moved southward from what was called the
Rust Belt of the North and thereby shifted the balance of political and
economic power away from the Northeast, where it had been lodged
for de cades. For the most part these migrants were conservative in
their political views, and they helped establish a Republican majority in
many of these states.
They also tended to join Evangelical churches, which emphasized
the importance of a personal encounter with the Almighty as a means
of salvation. By the end of the century, Evangelical church membership
outnumbered the more traditional Protestant denominations. And they
increasingly played a pivotal role in politics, both on the national and
state levels. The Roman Catholic church in the United States also
changed because of the recommendations of the Second Vatican Coun-
cil in 1965 in which services were conducted in English rather than Latin,
and communicants were urged to follow their own properly formed
consciences in conducting their lives. But the church faced a serious
scandal when it was revealed that a great number of priests had sexu-
ally abused young boys and that bishops had participated in an extensive
cover-up when informed of these crimes by moving the accused priests
to different perishes. Many dioceses were later sued and ordered to pay
millions of dollars in damages, necessitating a few dioceses to seek
protection in bankruptcy courts.
Much of this new direction in American life may have been the re-
sult of the so-called sexual liberation of the 1970 s, when the young in