Have fun rewriting your own ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of ̶C̶o̶m̶m̶o̶n̶ ̶L̶i̶s̶p̶ React.
that's the "problem" tho — i dont need that level of abstraction, i already know how to assign event listeners and toggle css classes, which covers 99% or real-life needs
For small projects, sure. But it breaks down in larger ones, ask me how I know. The reality is React and other tools solve problems at scale, plus they're genuinely nice to develop in, while vanilla JS simply is not.