self-delusion

self- +‎ delusion

self-delusion (countable and uncountable, plural self-delusions)

1. The act of deluding oneself, or the state of being so deluded.

   Synonym: self-deception

   • 2010, Peter Hitchens, The Cameron Delusion, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

     This self-delusion is even more the case with Trotsky, whose bloodstained intolerance is generally passed over because the 1960s student generation pretended then, and pretends still, that Trotsky was in some way a freedom-loving, Gulag-free alternative to Stalin.