I really can't see how you could feel that way about it after spending even just a few minutes (which it sounds like you have) to understand what it means beyond just reacting to terminology, something having a name.

I definitely think it'd be easier to explain a python-like declarative language to someone who asks what programming is than actual python. 'It's just describing the way things should be' vs. 'it's like a series of instructions for how to compute ...'

Certainly not more clever IMO, if anything the opposite. Like I said above or elsewhere in this thread, when I'm managing infrastructure with Terraform I don't want to (and don't have to) be thinking about how to interface with the API, check whether things exist already, their current state, how to move from that to what I want, etc. I just know the way I want it being, I declare that, and the procedure for figuring it out and making it so is the provider's job. That's not smarter! The smart's in the provider! (But ok if you're going to make me flex, I've written and contributed to providers too... But that's Go; not declarative.)