because from what I’ve seen the most susceptible groups judge an image with how much it aligns with their worldview and not objective reality or apparent image artifacts.

My mother in law is extremely right-wing Putin aligned.

Early in the Ukraine war (before AI images really became a thing), she was showing us MS-paint level image edits of a (black and white) WWII tank trying to roll over a (color) baby with a (color) Russian (super?)soldier holding the tank back with his bare hands to prevent it. She claimed this was proof of Ukrainians killing Russian babies, claiming it was a real, unedited photograph.

That was seriously a terrible image edit. Worse than shitpost memes. It really did look like somebody threw it together in 2 minutes with MS Paint. But she (at least claimed to) wholeheartedly believe it was a real, unedited photo.

This type of "it's real if I agree with it" person will believe anything they agree with, no matter how egregiously wrong and stupid it is.