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Notes -
Eh. Whether or not Jesus did exist, I think you're vastly overestimating how much scholars care what laymen think. There are some who make bank off laymen like Ehrman but he's atypical. For most, it's just not that interesting and yields little status or new research. Richard Carrier is actually a historian and even he gets little attention, nobody cares that much what Hitchensfan2909 is doing.
Scholars didn't reason backwards from the cringe. They already believed that Jesus was a historical figure long before the internet cringe started and simply don't want to deal with it.
Professional consequences also doesn't explain it all. Yes, the scholars in religious institutions often have to swear to faith statements and can be fired if they deviate from doctrine. But these people are obvious - Mike Licona lost his job for denying the literal raising of the saints in Matthew. Like...no one is under the impression that he or anyone in his position would deny Jesus' existence.
But critical scholars in more secular spaces have said some pretty offensive and lurid things from the perspective of traditional doctrine (Dominic Crossan iirc denies Jesus was given a tomb and claims that he was tossed into a mass grave and left to scavengers like any criminal) and they get away with it all the time.
If we're going to psychoanalyze, I think you actually accurately represent the general public's intuition that skepticism of Jesus' existence is more radical than the alternative and their suspicion that people are dodging it out of deference to religion (or their underestimation of just how hostile critical scholarship can be to traditional doctrine). And I think this impression is why mythicism is so attractive to atheists despite their usual deference to expertise.
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