WASHINGTON — Was the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff as the president of Brazil on Wednesday a coup?

Technically, the answer is no. Although there is no single definition of what constitutes a coup, it is at its core an illegal seizure of power. The Brazilian Senate’s 61-to-20 vote to remove Ms. Rousseff was the culmination of a legal process set forth in the Brazilian Constitution, and it simply does not meet that standard.

But Ms. Rousseff and her supporters have argued for months that the effort to oust her was in fact a coup engineered by a small group of elites.

They are not bothered by strict legal definitions. Rather, “coup” has become shorthand for accusing Ms. Rousseff’s political opponents of exploiting the law to subvert democracy.

There is truth to that. But it is rooted in problems that afflict Brazil’s entire political system, not just its right or its left.