A self image that has been instilled through years and years of highly targeted, and highly researched ad campaigns.

People "want" these because they believe they need it, because the ads told them they need it. Then the other men who own those vehicles proceed to shit on the men with smaller trucks, and those insecure enough to bend over get the big truck as well.

I don't see this truck culture in Europe. I don't see people buying stupid vehicles to go offroading full of expensive gadgets and so on. While I'm sure it exists in small pockets it is by no means the level it's at here. (In Europe it's probably more for sports cars anywho)

Point being, no one wanted those SUVs until the car companies told them they want those SUVs.

I've heard this plenty of times, but are you using that field? Are you using that forest? This road that road? Are you using the parking lot in Seattle when you live in Georgia?

"We have the space for bigger vehicles" does not make sense when we have to drive farther and farther to reach things that are useful for us. (Also sprawling development destroys local ecosystems, and along with that, natural resources.)

While I would've agreed with you a few years ago, it's just not a realistic thought process when most people live their day-to-day lives in an area about the size of Luxembourg.

Big vehicles are a huge waste of valuable resources that could've been used on other things, such as infrastructure, public transport, smaller vehicles. Etc.

Bigger vehicles feel better to drive.

If you like body roll, yeah. Otherwise they are worse overall.

I'd rather drive something smaller and more fun than some big lumbering hunk of metal and plastic.

Especially with how tall vehicles here are getting.

I'll stick with my Jetta and you do you, short king.

All the wasted space is part of the reason why car traffic, public transit, walkability, and road quality suck so bad here. Zoning laws are basically forcing us to build single family household suburbs. We need dense, mixed use cities that have work and shops closer to homes, with many options for public transit servicing every street. Instead, we’re paying to build and maintain roads to connect homes that are orders of magnitude less dense, meaning it’s more expense per land area and less income from its users as well. Suburbias needs to turn into downtowns, and we need to build bike lanes, trains, subways, streetcars, and bus lines instead of more car lanes.

On a country perspective America is indeed big, but cities usually become denser as they grow, and in some decades will become a traffic nightmare just like old European cities are.
edit: not to focus about all the problems that bigger cars carry

Makes sense for overweight drunk Americans. Bigger vehicles accelerate slower, aren't nearly as nimble, consume more fuel($$$), don't stop as well, destroy roads faster, consume more wear parts. Overall a net loss.

Granted they fit fat people better

"space isn't much of a concern in America" is one of the dumbest things I've heard in a while! What the fuck does that even mean? Like I get we have a large country but it isn't all roads and parking lots... yet