The electrical grid will not go down permanently. But it might go down long enough to drive the big cities insane. Nothing goes down permanently, it can always be fixed. And in the rural and smaller cities, there will be enough real workers to get it back up and running. But the bigger cities will have to fight through the looters and anarchists and rioters to even get to where they need to be. It will not be pretty, but it will be an eye opener.
Just like the LA riots were an eye opener for the Asian communities. I wonder how many Asian business owners are now solid gun owners, with a gas generator on the side.
I had a long conversation with an involuntary evacuee from New Orleans after Katrina. They rounded up all the people on high ground and shipped them out. He got on a plane and ended up in Tennessee and was bewildered as to where he actually ended up.
He told me of the Asian shop keepers who shot the looters. The looters were not armed and were driven away from the well armed Asians