> because generally you don't target C. (Generally you don't target assembly, either, but the distinction between assembly and machine code is academic to most people.)
You're excluding a large chunk of compilers with those two generalizations. Targeting assembly rather than directly emitting machine code is extremely common (gcc being one of the obvious examples), and targeting C is very common for new/experimental languages.
All I'm trying to say is that "a target for higher-level languages" is not a defining attribute of C in a way that makes "JavaScript is the new C" a helpful analogy.
You're excluding a large chunk of compilers with those two generalizations. Targeting assembly rather than directly emitting machine code is extremely common (gcc being one of the obvious examples), and targeting C is very common for new/experimental languages.