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About midway through Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises," one of the lead characters is asked, over booze and bulls, how he went bankrupt.

The famous retort, "Two ways - gradually and then suddenly," might also be a way to describe how America's political debate - now reaching its crazy apogee in 2016 - has steadily coarsened over the last decade or so.

PennLive's Opinion Page recruited a panel of experts to discuss what's happened to our political dialogue and what, if anything, can be done to fix it.

Meet the panel: (From left, above): Muhlenberg College political science professor Christopher Borick; David Taylor, president of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association Philadelphia Daily News political columnist John Baer Franklin & Marshall College political analyst Terry Madonna and Philadelphia public relations executive Larry Ceisler.

The discussion, the first in a periodic series by PennLive's Opinion Page, was moderated by Opinion Editor John L. Micek.

MICEK: So let's start with an easy one here: It's pretty safe to say that our political debate has gotten more coarse over the last couple of years. How did this start? What happened?

MADONNA: To some extent it's a reflection of the growth in incivility across society as a whole. The research has shown that from shows on television, to the media, to cyber bullying (extending to our schools), to business practices, and, of course, to American politics incivility is on the rise.

The latter extends to brutally harsh negative ads, including discourse in the presidential campaign unlike anything we have witnessed in modern history. There is some evidence it has gotten worse during the recent economic recession. Trump's political appeal, despite his rhetoric, goes to other aspects.

The belief that America is off on the wrong track, with many folks having been left behind over the past few years both in financial terms and by our politicians. There is a frustration level, we first saw in recent years in the 2010 Tea Party election.

There is also another contributing factor, heightened polarization. It's much easier to be harsh and negative if you are appealing to a hyper-partisan audience.

TAYLOR: I think that is true. Our society has become more compartmentalized, as technology delivers to each of us exactly what we want when we want it.

People self-segregate by lifestyle community.

For 30 years, the whole spectrum of American popular culture sat across from Johnny Carson, now people no longer even know what's going on outside their own niche.

I think that has intensified the "otherness" of our debates, which is partly why respect and civility have declined: no one believes there is or could be common ground.

CEISLER: Of course it has. That is one of the reasons that several years ago I got out of the political consulting business. It just became so mean and personal that it was difficult to deal with on a daily basis.

It probably began with the Clinton impeachment and then went downhill from there. Consultants were into it before the candidates and elected officials, but then many of them followed suit. But once talk radio and Rush entered the fray, everyone wanted to be in the game.

I thought Pennsylvania was later to the party than most, but now we are part of it. What is worse for me is that now I see it in my issue business.

Same stuff. Just a lot of hate out there. Whether it is the Left hating anything that is corporate from natural gas drillers to beverage companies to the Right believing that anything with a union label or a social justice mission must be a conspiracy. I think this is why civilians just tune out and disengage.

TAYLOR: [Lee] Atwater was tough but [James] Carville is creepy and dishonest. The campaign against Bill Scranton remains a low point.

BORICK: I think the comments shared so far do a great job of capturing the fundamental factors behind the more coarse political dialogue of the era.

Politics generally reflects the broader culture in which it is situated and I believe American culture as a whole has become less tempered in terms of the way in which we communicate.

Real divisions along ideological, racial, economic and social lines have been there for many years but the confluence of these divisions with public discourse that is often done through 30 second ads, 140-character tweets and 10-second sound bytes leaves little room for nuance, context and moderation.

Throw in an increasingly balkanized media environment and you have the conditions where existing divides become intensified and more caustic.

NEXT: "Our political culture is more about the quick response than the right one."