OK, I fully admit that headline is nothing more than a bad pun. Will Donald Trump lose the election? At this point, the answer to that is "probably." But when he does lose the election, will Donald Trump completely lose it? That is the more pertinent question being asked now, as he's already signaling that he's not exactly going to take the loss graciously (as all losing candidates are indeed expected to do).

Nobody who understands Trump should be surprised by this, really. Donald Trump's entire persona has always been that of a winner. He was taught by his father, at a very early age, that winning wasn't just a goal but the most important core value a person could have. There were winners in life, and losers. Trump was taught to be a winner, at all costs. It's not overstating the case to say that this is who Donald is, in his own mind: a winner, above all else. What this means is that losing the biggest contest he's ever been in is going to wound Donald right down to the core of his being.

Astonishingly, he seems to have already realized he's going to lose. I say "astonishingly" because most of his followers are completely and utterly convinced he's going to win. The polls all lie, the media lies, and millions of "silent majority" Trump voters are going to appear on Election Day and shame all the pointy-headed "experts" as Trump wins bigly. Don't believe me? Ask a Trump supporter and see if you don't get some version of that as a response.

Normally in politics, this is expected behavior not just from the voters but from the candidates. I cannot remember any previous instance where a candidate wasn't insisting that he or she is going to win, before the election. It is akin to political suicide to even hint you might be headed for a loss. "I'm confident we're going to win" is the only answer any politician will give when asked why they're behind in the polls, for instance. But in this case, Trump is actually admitting he might fall short, three weeks before the votes are counted. That's extraordinary.

Trump isn't just sounding like a loser, though, he's sounding like a very sore loser. When winning is everything in your world, then losing comes very hard. Blame will be placed on anything and everything other than Trump himself. It's the media's fault, for reporting all those words Trump says. It's Hillary Clinton's fault, for the sin of making Trump a loser. It's the Republican Party's fault for not backing him with sufficient fervor. It's the guy who set up the faulty TelePrompTer's fault. It's everyone's fault but Donald's.

All of this is normal sore-loser behavior. And all of it would be completely irrelevant to the political process. Trump whining about how this or that doomed his chances is going to get pretty old pretty fast, in other words. But what if Trump's outrage takes a more ominous turn?

America fought the Civil War because the South was such a sore loser. Between the time Abraham Lincoln was elected and when he was sworn into office, seven states had seceded from the Union. Losing the election was what motivated them to act when they did, in fact. Hopefully, history won't repeat itself this year, as it's pretty far-fetched that any state would attempt secession over Donald Trump's loss. It could happen, but it's not very likely (to say the least).

Short of breaking up the Union, however, anything might happen. If Trump truly does lose it and starts lashing out against Hillary, the election process, the media, the F.B.I., and the federal government in general, he could actually incite people to violence. Which is what everyone's now worried about, after Trump refused to say he'd accept the election results in the final presidential debate. Today, in a rally, Trump said he would only believe the election results if he won. If he loses, he's obviously going to make as big a stink as he possibly can. Does anyone now expect Trump to give a standard concession speech on the night of the election? The possibility of that happening seems to be getting more remote by the day.

A lot of what happens next will depend on how much Trump loses by. If there's a single state which could change the election's results if it flipped, then things could get quite ugly. However, if Clinton wins in an electoral landslide, with so many Electoral College votes that any individual state flipping (even one as large as Florida or Ohio) wouldn't make the slightest difference, then Trump's tantrum won't carry much weight at all. In 2000, Florida did determine the election. The recount happened, and the courts stepped in and declared George W. Bush the victor. Al Gore accepted the result, conceded the race, and there was a peaceful transfer of power. But if either Bush or Gore had won by a margin of 30 or more electoral votes, Florida wouldn't have even mattered.

Hillary Clinton now has an excellent chance of winning at least 300 electoral votes -- which is 30 more than she needs to win. Florida is only the third-biggest state (tied with New York at 29) in electoral votes, but the two bigger states are most likely not going to be an issue at all. California's 55 electoral votes are squarely in Clinton's corner. Texas has 38 electoral votes, but the only way this would matter is if the state went for Clinton. If Clinton wins Texas, she's going to be winning in all kinds of surprising states, so even this probably won't matter to Trump's total. If Clinton wins Texas, she might have the chance to get 400 electoral votes, to put this another way.

The reaction to Trump's sore-loser antics will depend on how big a margin Clinton racks up. If it is very close -- 29 electoral votes or less -- then Trump will be demanding recounts and threatening lawsuits. If these don't go his way, his followers might react violently. Or they could react violently immediately after the election.

But what are they going to do, really? What can they do? They're spread out all over the country, and there is no obvious target for their rage (other than Clinton herself, who will be very well protected). There may be scattered groups of Trump supporters (especially in the West) who "pull a Bundy" and take over some federal property and dare the government to evict them -- that's a real possibility, in fact. Even that wouldn't be all that bad, as with winter coming they could be starved and frozen out pretty easily, in most places. I could see militia groups declaring themselves no longer part of America and declaring their own "sovereignty" on remote patches of federal land.

That's all pretty passive, even with the whole "waving guns around and praising the Second Amendment" part of it. But what's horrible to even contemplate is whether Trump losing it on election night might spur some to commit acts of violence -- really, acts of terror -- against government property, government employees, or government agencies. Will there be rioting in the streets in multiple places in America? Will innocent people be killed? At this point, it's impossible to predict. Which, as Clinton pointed out last night, is indeed horrifying.

If a lot of well-armed people who have convinced themselves that Donald Trump is a shoo-in to win the election suddenly hit the brick wall of reality as the votes come in, what are they going to do next? Remember Karl Rove's famous meltdown four years ago, when informed that Ohio had gone to Obama? Imagine Karl with a lot of alcohol in him, and with easy access to a semi-automatic rifle. And further imagine Trump completely losing it on television, loudly screaming that the election had been stolen from him. What happens next?

These questions shouldn't even have to be asked, but we are where we are. Contemplating violent political action -- one definition of terrorism, in fact -- from American citizens in reaction to an election loss used to be unthinkable. Beyond the realm of possibility. Absolutely out of the question. It isn't, any more. We have two and a half weeks to go, and Donald Trump is already saying the election's going to be stolen from him. What is he going to tweet to his followers when every network announces he has lost? We simply don't know the answer to that. That's scary. Will Donald Trump lose it completely on election night? We all better hope not.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant