While the project of consolidating democracy into a durable and highly esteemed value in American culture has always been difficult to sustain, especially within the public schools, the struggle now assumes the character of a grave and inescapable need. Given the authoritarian and fascist resurgence across the globe, democracy and its accompanying values seem in retreat both abroad and in the United States. The first section of the paper develops a "Socratized Eros" as a form of love uniquely suited to promote democratic forms of cultural life. By employing three key Platonic heuristics, the author further outlines what it would mean to integrate a concept of Eros into contemporary pedagogical practice. In the second section, the author draws upon a set of democratic theorists to highlight specific moral and spiritual dimensions of democracy. A synthesis of these thinkers' insights permits those to reconfigure democracy as a secular religious project in need of an erotic love discourse. Finally, the author utilizes the Eros concept and the appearance-reality distinction in Plato's allegory of the cave for the purpose of reinterpreting the Declaration of Independence as a journey of civic transformation.