This is true, and goes back to the settling of the Western territories. Amusingly, many of them allied with Southern Democrats (this was in the 19th century be

This is true, and goes back to the settling of the Western territories. Amusingly, many of them allied with Southern Democrats (this was in the 19th century before the party platform switch) in proclaiming their desire for independence from the oppressive government, while in reality their livelihoods were entirely dependent on the government paying out money (railroad subsidies, agricultural subsidies, homesteading programs, etc). It also had a lot to do with for the anti-black sentiment of the South aligning with the anti-native and anti-Chinese sentiment of the west. This is also true in particular of the rise of California, which at one point accounted for nearly half of the country's military spending. If California were a startup, it's angel investors were the military and those seeking gold (or more precisely, those seeking to establish railheads to ship it back East).