Plain react is arguably just as simple if not simpler than jquery.

And I’m not saying every site needs to be an SPA. I’m saying if I can write everything from a simple site to an SPA in a single framework then why not use that for everything?

How do you handle routing with plain React?

React is an implementation of View component of MVC, View is responsible for displaying Model contents, not for handling routes. You are trying to use the wrong tool.

That's what we've been trying to tell you!

Using built-in browser apis. Not sure what you’re getting at.