SQLAlchemy is the library that convinced me, 8 or 9 years ago, to avoid using Python altogether.* Cold turkey, hard stop. Thank you for the motivation.
Not sure how they took something relatively straightforward - running database queries - and turned into such a convoluted mess.
*Python is still pretty good for data analysis, plotting, and scripting. But not for building actual applications.
They all say that until your business logic is so convoluted that maintaining several dozen SQL queries begets more work than sensible so you end up inventing your own query builder which is fine until you realize you really need business objects so you make up your own ORM and then you realize you needed SQLA or some similar piece of tech all along.
Tale as old as time.
Did someone force you to use SQLAlchemy? I mean you can write DB queries with and ORM. There are also other ORMs for python.