For instance the original, and probably fatal, blow to net neutrality was the 1996 Telecommunications act that was passed mainly to encourage "wire to wire competition", which has since become a total farce. In exchange for this absurd concept we not only gave the telecoms huge tax cuts (nominally so they could expand infrastructure) that they then directly plowed into dividends, share buybacks, and bonuses, we also allowed the sale of wireless spectrums (another public good). But most importantly we enshrined local monopolies into law. Almost every single fight we've had for net neutrality since then has stemmed from this legislation. Guess who signed it into law? Bill Clinton, a democrat. And while the Senate and House both had Republican majorities the bill was passed with largely bipartisan support (less than 20% of the Senate and less than 5% of the house voted against it) and heavy support from the Clinton administration.
But lets say you don't buy that, lets take a look at the current political climate. The largest recipients of telecom dollars in the Senate have been overwhelmingly Democrats (it's about 50/50 over the past 8 years in the House), the telecoms have extremely influential Democrats in their pocket like Nancy Pelosi (who laughably claimed that the ISPs would save us from the Republican bill to allow ISPs to sell your internet traffic history), and even ex-Obama administrators are largely applauding today's ruling. Don't for a second think you or anyone else is somehow above this just because you identify with a certain tribe.
Also it's pretty odd that you think name dropping engineering friends means you have an informed opinion on this extremely non-technical matter, as if an RF engineer would have an informed opinion on the intricacies of economic repercussions of spectrum auctions.
But you do have one very good point, elections have consequences. Vote out anyone who takes a dime from telecoms, ISPs, interconnect providers, or even tech companies. The issue here is not ideological, it is monetary. Corporate influence has completely taken over our political system and regardless of party we are helpless to stop it until we take a principled stand and refuse to vote for the representative who's trying to sell us to the highest bidder simply because they wear the same color shirt as the people we associate with.