Socrates had been studiously non-political. He had not embroiled himself in the political issues of the day, as vital as they often were. He had not spoken up in the Assembly, stood on a soapbox in the marketplace, or otherwise engaged in the political debates of his time. Plato seems to have made a point of emphasizing this fact[30]—even if some, including the great statesman Pericles, had condemned political inactivity as a kind of subversion of democracy.[31]
How then should Plato defend Socrates for his political stance—or lack of one? In the Apology Plato had let him say that the work he did for the god was of supreme political importance: he was making the citizens of Athens better by making them care about moral issues. In the Crito he portrays him as a dedicated citizen by virtue of upholding the laws of the city, even when they condemn him to death. But only in the Gorgias does Plato reveal Socrates as having the political art. His way of asking questions of the citizens of Athens, one by one, is not just a pastime or a quirk: Socrates is practicing an art, a technē. He is educating his fellow Athenians, in the only way that moral education is possible, to focus on what really matters: the right and the good. Here we must remember that for Socrates and Plato, an art is directed toward some real good. And the art consists of a reliable method to bring about that good. (See ch. 11.3* above.) Socrates was bringing about a renaissance of social responsibility. And, by implication, the Socratics are carrying on his work, preaching his gospel, converting the unwashed.
The real enemies of the state are not Socrates and his followers, but the Polycrateses and Isocrateses of the world, the sophists and salesmen who would have us focus on our personal self-interest and promote our aggrandizement—at the expense of the society we live in and the moral values that make society work.
Plato has tried to be nice about this, to show Socrates at his most humble and self-effacing, chiding, teasing, needling people to wake them up. But now a new generation of sophists have emerged, selling the old wares with a claim to be the real benefactors of society. Now the gloves are off, and Plato will expose them for the impostors they are. If Socrates were still alive, they would be persecuting him still. They are the enemies of morality and political harmony, not Socrates.
[30] Plato Apology 31c-32a.
[31] Thucydides 2.40.2.