git merge first-party instead of git init or git merge 3rd-party

That's the strategy being used because 3rd parties have no chance in our system. The only thing you can do is merge into one of the 2, become the new repo owner and reshape it going forward.

Bernie's "independent" label means very little. Look at how he votes. He's a Democrat. It's a weird attempted knock against him considering how consistent he's always been.

Bernie tried to primary Obama...he's independent

I mean, is there a way to vote Yes/No but "indpendently" on bills?

That's how it's done: https://www.multichannel.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_au...

There's no Yay or Nay with independent.

At the very least I wish the parties would split themselves.

The Democrats seems to have both a socdem wing and a more neoliberal wing and the Republicans a growing right wing populist wing and the standard neocons. Maybe this is oversimplified, but I feel like these should be different parties

Yes. But they're kind of stuck to each other. Really I agree that we have 4 major constituencies stuck within 2 parties. First past the post and single member districts kind of force it to be that way.

This is the sad truth. Try being a person who leans conservative, having the absolute racists of society be on your team. I imagine it's not much different than a liberal leaning person getting all the crazies on their side. I wish there were distinct parties for reasonable people...