I suspect this applies to societal taboos in general, though there may be an opposite effect -- forbidding certain types of discussion can rapidly destroy the status quo if the discussion that remains is biased in some way.

Any examples come to mind?

Problem is that attempts at change are important, so fights about what should change and in what direction get very very vicious. To use a non-political example: Some new starters want to switch to Rust, some lifers don't want to have to learn yet another toolset or be made redundant. The stakes are future career prospects and continued employment respectively. Imagine how much higher the stakes can be when you think your political opponents are plotting your genocide? (which is a real, if fringe, belief of some on both the American left and American right)

On the other hand, the status quo at least is known and not as bad as it could be (e.g. Bronze Age Collapse)...

Fads, or fad-generating phenomena, seem often to serve as highly-perceptible signifiers of deeper, hard-to-assess social and political patterns and groups, operating in a strongly information theoretic manner.

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/62uroa/clothin...