If the clearinghouses didn't put these requirements on RH, or ask brokers to stop buying of these shares, I assume they themselves are at risk of going under? (As you said, who's supposed to front those 5000% returns?) If that happens, would it not lead to a cascading failure of both clearinghouses and brokers going under? The end result being a major market crash?
The IB CEO seemed to be hinting at something like this on TV yesterday. It seems like there actually may be a lot at stake here, but I imagine that the clearinghouses and brokers will just shut it down again before any of that happens.
These means that the WSB narrative is sort of correct. It isn't direct collusion, but all these Wall St. firms are so reliant on each other that they'll always get each others back - if they don't they themselves are likely to go down.
EDIT: I just started watching the first video you linked and the CEO of WeBull is basically saying exactly what my comment does, so I guess I should've just watched that first.