You're right, she obviously understand what 1984 is about and that it warns about people like herself. Then it's quite convenient to take one of your opponents and find a few similarities to Hitler/Stalin or another historic villain and project the 1984 content onto them instead.
Most people haven't read 1984 and don't know exactly what it says, just that it's about some sort of authoritarian and evil society they want to avoid, and then it's the one owning the narrative (present) who controls the story (history).
It's really quite ironic... In a dark kind of way.