Part of the problem is their commute is also probably a farther distance due to suburban sprawl and housing prices pushing people farther from their work places.

Not only gas prices, some trucks are priced similarly to mid end porsches. I've always seen them similarly as I see minivans or SUVs: something circumstances might dictate you should drive instead of a car. Minivans if you need to haul kids, SUVs if you need to haul sports equipment, trucks if you need to haul things moved by front loaders or outdoor tools. Or maybe if they do some offroading, certain trucks work well for that (though I'd personally rather go for a jeep, Suzuki, or something small).

But for some reason there's people who get a fancy liner so that their groceries don't scratch their truck bed and their tires never touch dirt until maybe they want to show off and end up stuck in some mud or something because they forgot to set it to 4WD.

What happened?

It's worse than that. I live in a rural Midwestern state, and have seen huge expensive trucks outside of a tiny home in terrible condition. Their truck is probably equally expensive as their home. It's sucking all of their income and driving them into poverty.

Also near me, there was a billboard advertisement that said simply, "YOU NEED A TRUCK" with a picture of one of these monsters. I see people driving them around hauling nothing. It's about 30% of the vehicles on the road. It's a culture I will never understand.