Oh my god I would like to see a hatchback or a sedan or a station wagon on the road again please. Every car manufacturer is selling maybe a single massively overpriced sports coupe, maybe the world's most boring shopping cart that feels like it's made from soda cans but is still somehow unaffordable, 10 Suburban Assault Vehicles of various sizes, and like 3 monster trucks.
Holy shit maybe roads wouldn't be such a hell nightmare if they weren't only selling tanks.
It's not totally impossible. I bought a car for under 4k (including registration and new parts) about 6 months ago, which I needed to only do some minor repairs on before it was running quite well. However i recognize that this kind of thing is more practical for a person like me bc I do all my own car repair/maintenance work anyway, and it you are not doing that the economic situation is quite different. That being said, while I know that the national average has gotten quite high, I wouldn't despair bc there are some decent options still.