python does have pointers under the hood. objects are passed via pointers. i think the implementation is tagged values in order to support dynamic typing and passing non-pointer values efficiently. but if there was no object tagging the runtime would be very similar to go. both have objects passed around as pointers using some form of garbage collection to handle memory safety.

the optional static type checking in python gives you a stronger typing than what golang does because you don't have to type everything as (None | Foo) and presumably its a type error to perform Foo operations on a (None | Foo) type.