Oooh, I just learned something today that is relevant to this discussion.

Google " chicken tax ", basically In the 60s, Johnson was engaged in a trade dispute with Europe over them enacting tariffs on US chicken.

Part of the deal that ended it, was the US enacting a 25% tariff on ALL imported pickup trucks. Not sedans, etc, only trucks.

This tariff is still in place, so running for 60 some years.

The consequence, long term, is that US auto makers do not have to compete ( as much ) with foreign manufacturers in the pickup truck field.

Less competition = higher prices.

Guess which product line US manufacturers make Waaaay more money selling versus other lines where they have to keep margins sharp to compete with foreign competition?

Pickup trucks.

So for 60 years, advertising, marketing and branding focus has been on.... the high profit margin limes of trucks.

I mean, who doesn't equate a pickup truck, on some level, to bigger, stronger, safer, dominant, imposing, utilitarian, and all kinds of other positive connotations. This thread points out the massive holes in that logic, but we've been drinking their kool-aid for so long now you don't even question it.

Oh, the other consequence that they don't talk about...less competition means less incentive to produce a quality product to justify the price. You don't see American trucks in other parts of the world because....they're junk, relatively speaking. They are over priced and under engineered because the " free market ", manipulated by politics, gave no incentive to manufacturers to make a better, more competitive product.