Both sides serve different masters, none of which is the American public.
If one offers you ice cream more often than the other, that doesn't make them "less bad". Chemotherapy is "less bad" than cancer, but most folks generally don't want to have either.
If one party says, "hey, let's try to work on this bill together" and essentially appropriates a lot of the ideas from one of the opposing members (Romney), and is able to create a compromised, conservative approach to at least helping millions of Americans get health insurance (the ACA), and other side says, "let's undo this right now, not because we have a better solution, but because politically we have to" and tries to expedite the process because they know their bill wouldn't survive a rigorous and lengthy review, which is predicted to give substantial savings to the richest people in America while leaving millions without healthcare, then yes, I would say one side is 'less bad.'
You can cherry-pick this all day long. Partisans from both sides can point to specific cases of the opposing party behaving badly and/or biting an outstretched hand.
Both parties are self-serving.
Both parties have supported the surveillance state.
Both parties ignore their constituents when convenient.
Both parties have promoted legislation that they themselves are exempt from.
"Less bad" is a red herring. What's better, a shit sandwich or a sandwich with 90% less shit in it? Partisans will try to convince you that any sandwich will have shit in it, and their particular sandwich's shit is barely noticeable and actually good for you if you were smart enough to realize it.
Bottom line: We're all in a prison, and shit sandwiches are for dinner. I'll take the one with 90% less shit until (hopefully someday) we're all released from the prison that is American democracy.
It sounds like your critiques are more system-related than ideology-related. That's fine. Systemically, it's a tricky question. What's the best way to ensure that 300 million people have access to the most complicated global networking system ever created? Is our capitalist republic equipped to handle it?
But your systemic critique bypasses the obvious point that ideologically, there are great differences between the major American political parties on this issue.
Denouncing the system as "all shit" does nothing to change this fact.
Exactly who is paying Democrats to oppose this? They're doing it out of principle. There are major ideological differences between the two parties. Narratives like yours are unbelievably dismissive and politically deaf.
"Exactly who is paying Democrats to oppose this? They're doing it out of principle."
Yes, the principle being: if the other guys are for it, we're against it. Just like the Republicans.
You can argue for individuals standing on principle, such as Ron Wyden (D-OR). But he was a standout in his own party when it came to re-authorizing the Patriot Act in 2011. Likewise, in the same party you have Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who is a major proponent of mass surveillance.
No, the Democrats are not magically immune to corruption or self-service. There is no Democrat Exceptionalism here.
Obama's FCC has been far more consumer friendly than Bush's and now we're back to GOP FCC rules and policies that are anti-consumer, at best. Its not a "you go one way, we go the other" style politics, but legitimate ideological differences. The Dem senators want those big donations from telecoms as well, but they're saying no to this due to ideology.
Also bringing up the Patriot act is dishonest, that's a national security issue, while this is a consumer privacy one. These types of things intersect, they're still different concepts and different bills.
A FISA warrant to get my information? Fine, I accept that. There's oversight and every nation needs security and has processes in place to ensure it, flawed as it is. Handing my info to every shady marketer and social media company? No.
