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I had similar reactions reading the republic recently with how much felt like it could apply to our times but I didn't quite pin it as "progressive left" entirely, although there are definitely some echoes there. I think there are clear echoes in modern populism generally, as well as with liberalism which both have strains in both American parties, and the left/right divide in general. Given that Plato's alternative suggestions were completely unworkable, the temptation for me is to throw my arms up and say "that's life", but the other commentator's description of Aristotle makes me want to follow up with his writings which I've barely explored.
In his book "Conflict of Visions", Thomas Sowell slams Plato as an adherent of the "unconstrained vision", and a proto-Marxist. However, it is not clear that Plato actually advocates the policies he describes as "ideal state" to be a thing in the real world.
In any case, while the Greeks described certain problems very cogently, I wouldn't turn to them for wholesale solutions. They obviously never figured out how to run a sustained democracy. The Romans did, though -- from around 500 BC to 150 BC. Unfortunately, the Romans didn't write much in that period, and we do not even have a full text of their constitution, the "Twelve Tables of Roman Law" (I'm not even sure they kept a written copy). Maybe that's the secret -- don't write it down!
The Spartan constitution attributed to Lycurgus was deliberately unwritten, or at least it was claimed to be so. Some copies apparently did exist, most notably at the oracle of Delphi. Spartans themselves were supposed to maintain it orally.
From Plutarch:
Sparta's government and domestic policy was truly bizarre, though, and doesn't map well to modern politics. Caste society, mostly automated ascetic communism, no private property, iron coinage (to make wealth unwieldy and theft ungainly), two kings, an elected-for-life-council-of-elders, many other peculiarities.
My own two cents is that the value of the unwritten constitution lay in its looseness. It allowed, and depended on, virtuous men to exercise real decision making power.
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