system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How does France maintain more than two political parties despite a winner-take-all system?
gpt
Many countries with single-winner, district-based elections have multiple major parties. These systems discourage party fracturing, but do not prevent it--e.g., in the United Kingdom the Liberal Democrats are a respectable third party. The reason the United States has just two main parties has to do with political polarization in its early political history, first over federalism and later over slavery.