Wanted to say the same thing. People often conflate JS with the DOM API, but that couldn't be further from the case.

You can get rid of JS, but that won't help much because it's just a small language interfacing with a huge, old, backwards compatible to 20+ years ago system that is the DOM.

yep, ive still never understood the fetish of HN folks wanting to eliminate JS completely. you tell them to use TS, they say its overcomplicated... i've never heard a definitive or decent answer to "ok what language WOULD you use for manipulating the DOM?" its infuriating, though i suppose those complaining have probably built like one website once. yes, JS is not your strongly typed Rust / Go / .NET, get over it - go learn TypeScript and be happy