Third rail (politics)

A wide range of issues might be claimed detrimental to politicians tackling them, but those below have all been explicitly described using the "third rail" metaphor:

• Withdrawal of Social Security and Medicare benefits^[4][5][6][7]
• Debate of race issues^{[8][9][10][11]}
• Antidumping and countervailing duty withdrawal^[12]
• Opposition to abortion for rape victims^[13]
• Resuming the draft^[14]
• National content policy in export finance^[15]
• The role that gifted education plays in modern public school segregation^[16]
• Debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. support for Israel^[17][18][19]
• Debate about mass immigration^[20]
• Diverting water from the Great Lakes to the Southwest^[21]
• Guns, including semi-automatic weapons and child safety locks.^[22][23][24]
• California's Proposition 13 on property tax^[25]
• The impact of meat consumption on climate change^[26]
• The transfer of Federal lands over to states.^[27]

• The Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute^[28]

• Policies to address climate change^[29]
• Introducing Constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, Makarrata Commission and Indigenous treaties^[30][31][32]
• Removing or reforming Negative Gearing ^[33]

• Reforming or privatizing public health care^[34]
• Reforming or privatizing the Canada Pension Plan^[35]
• Amending the Constitution of Canada
• Re-Criminalization of Abortion
• Repeal of Same-Sex Marriage

• Abolition of Store Bededag as a public holiday.^[36]

• Introducing a speed limit on Autobahns^[37][38]

• The introduction of income tax for agricultural income^[39]
• Changes to the reservation system

• Abortion was viewed as a third rail prior to the Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland which legalised it in 2018^[40][41][42]
• The provision of medical cards (which grant free or low-price healthcare to people on low incomes and the chronically ill)^[43][44]

• Drug policy^[45]
• Reform of the National Health Service^[46]
• Social care^[47]
• West Lothian question^[48]
• Rejoining the European Union^[49][50]

• Advocating Hong Kong independence^[51]

The term OB marker ("out of bounds marker", a golf term)^{[citation needed]} is widely used in Singapore for forbidden topics, such as:

• Corruption^{[citation needed]}
• The Sedition Act makes it illegal to "promote feelings of ill-will or hostility between different races or classes of the population".^{[citation needed]}

• Recognition of Kosovo's independence

• Asch conformity experiments – Study of if and how individuals yielded to or defied a majority group
• Communal reinforcement – Social phenomenon
• Foot-in-the-door technique – Compliance tactic
• Groupthink – Psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people
• Overton window – Range of ideas tolerated in public discourse
• Spiral of silence – Political science and mass communication theory