In the debate over what should be done about the recent controversial Student Government Association election, everyone is wrong – and I mean everyone.

The winning candidates? They tried to campaign by talking to their friends, and that’s trying too hard. Frankly, we should have taken their phones away before campaigning started. The others are not only salty about not being able to overthrow the status quo, but they also seem to think we should actually hold people accountable.

But if we haven’t already been doing that, how is it fair that we start now?

The SGA has jumped the shark. Everyone in the organization wants their second of fame decrying something or other while the rest of us wonder why the SGA is around in the first place. I am sick of hearing about things likes “rules” and “technicalities” and frankly, so is the student body.

But it’s not enough to be against the SGA itself. We can’t just sit back in our egg chairs and complain, complain, complain. It’s time to shut down this scam of an institution and replace it with something better connected to the reality of college students. Some alternative must replace the sole defender of students against the massive bureaucracy that is the University of Massachusetts.

I have the answer: We need a town hall style of government.

Yes, I’m talking about the free-for-all open forum that defined the Amherst government just a year ago. But I’ll take it even further. Gone will be the days that “elected officials” are supposed to “represent” us. We won’t need a manager, either. Instead, we need to convert our school’s governance to a direct democracy, so we truly know that our views are being represented.

Here’s how it would work:

Every week, the “SGA meeting” would be a room reserved for students to talk about the chief issues of the day. As to be inclusive and democratic, it will be one person, one vote and literally anyone can be a member. The decision will be left to a majority vote of whoever shows up, no matter how few are present. That way, if you get fed up with the people around you and want to resign, you can just not show up and the body can still operate. No more getting hamstrung by low attendance – so long as one person shows up, we will never waste a moment of time.

Anyone who has tried to sit through an SGA meeting knows that enforcing structure to the meeting will make things take five hours longer than they need to. As such, rules of debate and conversation will be abolished. Chairs will not be allowed in order to encourage people to keep meetings efficient. An ideal meeting will be one where people storm in, scream their principles loudly and vote by “yay” or “nay” based on whoever can provide a convincing argument that they are the majority voice.

Debates will be as lively as ever. Since you’ll be getting sweaty in a room with the small minority of people with the guts to talk about your rights as a college student, you’ll have to be interesting and assertive in order for people to listen to you. No one will have fancy titles like “commissioner” or “secretary” – everyone will get to be a student, and every student will get a voice. You won’t have to have a famous name like “Sullivan” or “McCandless” either – you can be a humble free-thinker like Massachusetts Daily Collegian comment section regular Amy Lieu, or Sam from Sweets n’ More.

The “town hall” government solves everyone’s problems. You can have the same fights without needing to listen to the haughty language and legal diatribes. Vetting members for seats at the council is no longer necessary, so you will never have to worry about being discriminated against by an oppressive majority that thinks you might have bad ideas about how to run government. Obstacles to forming your own RSO are over; you can even approve it by walking into the meeting room and shouting “Aye!”

We need to expand the powers of this new SGA town meeting while we’re at it. If the student body votes to stop tuition from rising, we shouldn’t have to go through UMass to make it happen. The administration should react to us – they can always stop constructing expensive buildings and shrink enrollment if they have to. This is our school. They cater to us, not the other way around.

The change won’t happen without you. Write to your SGA representative today to take away their jobs and make a system that can really address our student body’s interests and needs.

Jesus Ba’noodle has run for SGA Senate four times but has never been allowed to join. He can be found constructing voodoo dolls of all current SGA members in the UMass Craft Center.