“They have the strongest bonds with the guys still here—as opposed to people like Phil, whom the older guys know well, but the younger guys don’t.”

I’m veering toward no because “the younger guys don’t” isn’t an independent clause, and, therefore, the normal rules about adding a comma before a coordinating conjunction when combining two independent clauses technically don’t apply.

But is that truly not an independent clause? In the phrase “the younger guys don’t” is there an implied “know [him] well,” thus making the clause independent. I’m having a hard time figuring out whether a clause is independent or dependent when it involves who/whom constructs because, although they contain a subject, verb, and an object, they don’t sound like independent clauses to the ear (I know the he/who rule).shareit appvn

For example, is the phrase “who rules here” an independent clause because it’s equal, grammatically speaking, to “he rules here,”?

There should be no comma before the but (strictly speaking) in the above sentence, correct?

Of course not.