Your experience may vary but I'm a network engineer who learned Python and I think learning regex and pandas is invaluable. Depends on what you want to build though. As far as learning resources, I've always liked w3schools, it's free and to the point.
For books, python 101 by Michael Driscoll is very good. I wouldn't spend money on courses. They can be pretty demotivating and expensive.
I mean, I don't like to read it but I think you're right. The Democrats need to align with progressives to win. Biden is set to lose this election, as much as I hate Trump.