I think you may be overestimating human reasoning skills. I often don't even notice "arguments as soldiers"[0] in the moment, despite my interest in rationality, and that's a very easy way to get unrelated claims squished together like that.

[0] https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/arguments-as-soldiers a topic which I'm thinking about now because a few days ago I noticed half an hour too late that "you need to wear a mask while on public transport in Berlin" has shifted to the side effects of vaccines without me realising.