It’s the heat of the strangest and most disturbing election of our lifetimes—a statement that is undeniably true whether you’re 12 or 102. We couldn’t let this election pass without comment. That said, we decided the world didn’t need another dissection of the Republican candidate. So we offer up a short symposium on some of the more hidden keys to this election. Is working-class feminism a potent electoral strategy? Will latent sexism in the electorate reveal itself in the vote? Will “household economics” be enough? How big a deal will the Supreme Court be? What is this “Latino community”? And where will the Sanders movement go, in November and beyond? Respectively, Thomas Sugrue, Ellen Fitzpatrick, Mark Schmitt, Brianne Gorod, Fernand Amandi, and Theda Skocpol provide answers.

Next, we look at the unconventional ways to unleash greater economic growth. In conjunction with the Kauffman Foundation, we asked leading experts in a range of areas, from health care to antitrust law to always overlooked areas like labor mobility: What kinds of laws, rules, and practices are holding back growth, and how can they be changed to unleash it? I can promise that you will learn something interesting in each of the pieces.

Elsewhere, Richard Vague offers a new answer to the question of what’s holding back the global economy: private debt. Mohja Kahf of the University of Arkansas responds to our lively “Islam and Liberalism” roundtable discussion from the last issue. Henry Aaron reviews Samuel Bowles’s The Moral Economy. Danny Postel considers the long-awaited new volume on Iran’s internal domestic politics by the journalist Laura Secor. And Joshua Holland digs into a new book urging us all to pray for the day when our economy more resembles that found in Star Trek.

That would be great. But first, let’s make it through this election; then we’ll worry about living long and prospering.