It's an interesting argument. Without having read e.g. Plato's Republic myself, is the novice likely to learn as much or more from reading a direct translation as they are from its Wikipedia page and some commentaries?
Obviously the ideal is the read the source material and then read commentaries after once you've had a chance to reflect on it for yourself.
Of course for me, I have only ever managed to read Plato and Karl Popper. Other "Classics" like Hume or Kant I can't make heads of tails of the source material without some guidance. I haven't even tried the most notoriously dense authors like Nietsche or Hegel.
Project Gutenberg has the Jowett translation:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55201/55201-h/55201-h.htm
... and what little I could see of the C.D.C. Reeve translation at Amazon looked very approachable:
https://www.amazon.com/Republic-Hackett-Classics-Plato/dp/08...
The novice will then have the capacity to think more seriously about current or historical political questions and devise better responses or approaches to them (better for the novice and better for our societies).
Always go to the masters first - the Platos, the Keynes, the Freuds... They're by far the best exponents of their own thinking.