George W. Bush, Al Gore or civil war? This is the question being asked now by alarmists, especially those with a taste for theatrical overstatement.

Civil wars do not happen in countries with booming economies, where blue-collar workers install satellite dishes and 20-year-old Internet moguls buy private planes and multimillion-dollar Caribbean retreats. Texas will not secede, and nobody is going to raid Florida. Yet the current political crisis is definitely introducing America to a higher level of intolerance -- and even some violence.

Officials in Florida have been confronted by angry pro-Bush mobs, which East Coast Democrats promptly labeled fascist. Without a doubt, more such incidents will occur. The farce of November 2000 will not be forgotten or forgiven by either partisan group. As a young American woman I know put it, "No matter who the next president is, he is likely to be shot." This pronouncement might tip over into the fevered realm of conspiracy theory, but the president who actually was shot 37 years ago, John F. Kennedy, had also won the office by a tiny margin.