I was a political party member for a decade, and seperately met many political staffers and Members of Parliament through my previous career.

Most people are as ignorant as swine, but you'd be surprised how many in politics have at least some idea about Ancient Greek democracy.

Some pretend our system is descended from it, just "modernised". Others say it was bad, partiarchal, elitist. A few will admit it was better than our system, but claim it can't work at nation-state scale (probably true).