Because it’s not a programming language… it’s a stylesheet language. Nobody builds programs or applications in CSS. Therefore, common programming idioms like “declarative” and “imperative” don’t really apply in the same sense as they might with a programming language. It doesn’t really make sense how you’re trying to use them in a way to deride CIJ’s.

I’m not suggesting that CSS isn’t declarative… it definitely is… but authoring CSS inside of JavaScript doesn’t inherently make it less declarative.