The problem with lists as tree is that there is no universal way to distinguish a:{ b c:d } from a:{ b:(c d) } which is why we need proper maps as first class citizen for "the next lisp"
Clojure does have maps as a first class citizen (besides sets, vectors and lists). Then there is clojure.walk and other namespaces suitable for tree manipulation. https://clojure.org/api/cheatsheet
Using trees of these collections is quite customary in Clojure - on the front-end you might keep the application state in a single atom, like re-frame does and update various branches of it using events/ effects and listening on changes to those branches using subscriptions. This approach work for us at orgpad.com quite well.
