Wednesday's riots were not a threat to anything either. They knew it was coming days in advance and allowed it to proceed so it could be used as a pretext for the ongoing crackdown and consolidation of political and cultural dominance (as well as splitting U.S. populist factions onto multiple platforms where they will no longer see each other).
Sorry for the delay but I've been swamped since this conflagration.
Your recent posts have been using HN primarily for political battle. Please don't do that—it's against the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and it's the line across which we start banning accounts (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), regardless of which politics they're battling for. The reason is that it basically destroys what HN is supposed to exist for, which is curious conversation on a wide range of topics.
Rejection of federal assistance, Capitol contractors told to stay home days in advance, numerous security barriers left wide open in the buildings, Pelosi is in charge of Capitol Police but left a laptop lying around so that could become a big HN headline ....