Plato’s ideal, where power serves the state, relies on politicians—driven by ambition and enacting symbolic rituals and fictions—to unify the masses for action.
Platitudes, pleasantries, and noble values mask the lie of nobility, which sustains democracy by thwarting the most outrageous, blunt, strongman tactics as ignoble, undemocratic, and unworthy: the noble lie checks the liar.
Democracy’s strength should be redirecting such pretentious rhetoric (lies) from personal power into state power, thwarting the rise of dictators or monarchs as their ambition is subsumed and sublated for the benefit of all.