On a searingly hot day beneath a Confederate statue surrounded by six “no trespassing” signs, Susan Bro talks to a Swedish TV crew. Then she makes a short walk to a street named after her daughter.

“I think she was killed right around where those people are talking,” she says, pointing to a spot beside a redbrick wall on which fresh tributes are regularly chalked.

Heather Heyer, who would have celebrated her 33rd birthday on Tuesday, was mowed down by a car last summer while protesting against neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia. Last week, at a courthouse a short distance away, lawyers sought to persuade a federal judge that organisers of the far-right rally should be held accountable.

The case, which could leave prominent white nationalists such as Richard Spencer facing ruin, exemplifies a broader legal offensive aimed at throwing sand into the gears of the “alt-right” movement. Nine months after the show of strength in Charlottesville, there are signs that the effort is working as hate groups haemorrhage cash, are banished from social media platforms and turn on each other in vicious turf wars.

“The legal strategy is to send them into disarray, send them scrambling and hold each one of them to account,” said David Dinielli, the deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), noting a groundswell among lawyers, victims and advocacy groups. “The bottom line is all of these traditional legal theories are tools to make people answer for their conduct, bring them out of the shadows, expose them for what they are and ultimately show they have less power than they think.”

The election of Donald Trump in November 2016 was seen as a catalyst for the empowerment of white nationalism. Days later, a few blocks from the White House, an exultant Spencer shouted “Hail Trump!” and led supporters in Nazi salutes. Steve Bannon, who previously boasted his Breitbart News website was “the platform for the alt-right”, was installed as White House chief strategist. Hardliner Stephen Miller also took a senior role.

White nationalists and white supremacists carrying torches march through the University of Virginia campus last August. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images

Then, last August, came Charlottesville. Hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members marched with tiki torches, chanted “Jews will not replace us!” and “Blood and soil!” and surrounded a group of students on a university campus. A day later, wielding shields, clubs and guns as well as swastikas and Confederate flags, they claimed to be protesting over the planned toppling of a 1924 statue of the Confederate general Robert E Lee. Violence erupted and a man drove his car into a crowd of counter-demonstrators, killing Heyer and injuring 19 others.

Donald Trump insisted there were “some very fine people on both sides”.

‘I’m under attack’

Now a civil lawsuit accuses 25 individuals and groups of conspiring to plan, promote and carry out violence in Charlottesville in violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Last Thursday in the city, a judge heard arguments brought by 19 of them seeking to have the case dismissed, contending they never intended for the protest to spiral out of control and were merely exercising their first amendment right to free expression.

The action was brought by 10 Virginia residents who say they suffered severe physical and emotional injuries; funded by a new nonprofit group, Integrity First for America; and defended by Roberta Kaplan, a renowned lawyer who successfully argued a 2013 case before the supreme court that ultimately led to the legalisation of same-sex marriage. She was supported by Karen Dunn, a veteran of debate prep with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who is now at leading law firm Boies Schiller Flexner.

The three-hour hearing in a modern, airy courtroom featured podcaster Michael Peinovich, a burly white nationalist with cropped hair and closely trimmed beard, nervously shifting from one foot to the other as he spoke on his own behalf. Recalling a speech he gave expressing love for America, Europe and white people, Peinovich added as an aside: “Some people might find that offensive; I don’t know why.” A black US marshal, sitting nearby, remained expressionless.

Spencer was also expected to appear but instead drafted a lawyer at the last minute. He had previously released a video message in which he sought to portray himself as a victim of “lawfare”, stating: “I’m under attack. And I need your help. Some of the biggest, baddest law firms in the country are suing me ... We shouldn’t underestimate the challenge of this lawsuit and future ones like it. This is warfare by legal means, designed to be debilitating and consuming, regardless of the facts and regardless of the ultimate judgement.”

Pleading for donations to cover his legal costs, Spencer added: “Lawfare like this will not stop with Charlottesville. Our adversaries don’t just want to stop large public rallies; they will likely ultimately go after any expression of white identity, or really any expression that challenges hegemonic discourse.”

Our adversaries don’t just want to stop large public rallies; they will likely go after any expression of white identity Richard Spencer

The far right has been caught in legal entanglements that sap time and threaten bankruptcy before. Perhaps the benchmark case was in 2000 when a jury awarded $6.3m to Victoria Keenan and her son, after they were attacked by guards outside the Idaho headquarters of the white supremacist group Aryan Nations. The judgment forced its leader Richard Butler to turn over the 20-acre compound to the Keenans, who in turn sold it to a philanthropist who later donated it to a local college.

Two decades on, with hate groups thriving online and disinhibited by Trump, their opponents are turning to the courts in part because they lack faith in the current justice department. Shock jock Alex Jones and his website Infowars, Jim Hoft of the site Gateway Pundit, and five others are being sued by Brennan Gilmore, a counter-protester in Charlottesville who quickly became the subject of conspiracy theories falsely claiming he was a CIA or “deep state” agent who helped coordinate the violence as part of a government operation.

Jones has also been hit by three defamation lawsuits from the families of eight victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, over his incredible claim that the massacre was an elaborate hoax orchestrated by gun control supporters. The SPLC, meanwhile, is backing a lawsuit against Andrew Anglin, founder of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website, for orchestrating an antisemitic harassment campaign to terrorise a Jewish woman and her family.

A demonstrator is seen holding a sign at a rally held in New York. Photograph: ddp USA/REX/Shutterstock

Such figures have discovered there is a price to pay for courting publicity in the Trump era. Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, said: “This is the downside of being an alt-right celebrity. Once you start writing books and getting speaking fees, you have attention and people can come after you. If you’re going to be a public Nazi, you’re going to have to face the consequences. These groups are operating as if they’re still in the shadows and they’re not.”

The offensive in the courts has benefits and risks, Cassino said. “It makes it easy to drain the resources of the biggest alt-right groups and celebrities and makes it difficult for them to do their jobs, ties them up for years and makes their lives miserable.

“But it also fragments their base: they will go back to 50 such groups and, the more groups you have, the harder it is to keep track of who’s doing what. When you have 50 groups marching in hoods, you don’t know who’s responsible for anything. We believe that fragmentation breeds extremism. Each group competes to be more extreme and that’s dangerous for all of us.”

You can’t sue an ideology. These views don’t go away when the person does. I think they’ll just find a new home Jared Holt, Right Wing Watch

The conceit of last August’s Unite the Right rally now lies in tatters. The movement has been disrupted, degraded and divided, its woes intensified by infighting, slow recruitment, money troubles, loss of some footholds on the internet and vigorous counter-protests. One of its biggest groups, the Traditionalist Worker Party, collapsed in March.



Jared Holt, research associate at Right Wing Watch, said: “What’s been called the alt-right has been splintering for a while. The lawsuits had the effect of isolating those figures and inspiring a lot of alt-right supporters to abandon them in favour of ones who are not jeopardised. Nothing I’ve seen in the alt-right fan base indicates strong loyalties.”

Holt added: “They’re definitely on their heels at the moment. They have had a very hard time engaging in this never-ending purity spiral in the movement, trying to decide who’s in and who’s out. It’s incredibly vulnerable right now.”

But like Cassino, he cautioned that the legal approach alone will not address the underlying causes. “You can’t sue an ideology. These views don’t go away when the person does. I think they’ll just find a new home: there’ll be new podcasts and new websites that come up. Someone will come in and fill the void.”

‘It’s not going to go away’

White supremacists acknowledge that they are feeling the pain but remain defiant. Eli Mosley, 26, one of the defendants in the Charlottesville lawsuit, said the court system was being used to “bog down” the far-right. “Obviously it’s an effective tactic: they have to use all this time and money to defend themselves.”

But Mosley, real name Elliot Kline, who now claims to have quit the far right, added: “It’s not going to go away. The same pressures that created the alt-right have got worse. When people hear President Trump call MS-13 ‘animals’, over half the country agrees with him and the rest can’t believe anyone would say that. The country is going to keep getting more and more divided.”

Jeff Schoep, leader of the National Socialist Movement, described by the SPLC as “one of the largest explicitly Hitlerite groups in America”, is also named in the Charlottesville action. “We consider it lawfare,” he said, “specifically designed to drain the organisations of finances and keep us caught up in frivolous court cases. It’s ridiculous. They don’t have a legal leg to stand on.”

The 43-year-old, based in Detroit, warned: “If they try to drive out certain leaders, you may have more irresponsible people stepping up. We’re trying to do things the legal way here. If the system takes that away from the white nationalist movement, I’m not saying it’s going drive people to become more radical but you can put two and two together. It’s an open question.”

I think they’re just going underground temporarily to take the heat off and then they’re never really going away Susan Bro

As for Spencer, head of the far-right National Policy Institute, he was forced to cancel a speaking tour at university campuses in the face of fierce protests. He also complains that his PayPal and Stripe accounts have been suspended, curtailing his ability to do business online, and he has been kicked off Facebook.

“I became a household name, a kind of icon,” he said. “And then the establishment started to attack.”

Spencer, 40, who coined the term “alt-right” and advocates a whites only ethno-state, admitted that the movement has been rocked back on its heels since Charlottesville.

“I’ve been spending more time on the lawsuit than I have been writing so in a way, yes, that’s a victory. But this is round three of the heavyweight bout. The story isn’t over. The whole question is can we come through this and be stronger and have learned lessons and have built better institutions so on, so that’s really the challenge.”

‘Do not ignore them, do not take them lightly’

Susan Bro, who found Mother’s Day excruciatingly hard this year – “I cried” – offered a brisk dismissal of Spencer.

Susan Bro talks about her daughter, Heather Heyer, in September last year. Photograph: Julia Rendleman/The Guardian

“He likes to play the victim,” she said, as the sun beat down on the Lee statue in Emancipation Park. “He’s a manipulator. He’s a shyster and he very much seems to enjoy controlling other people and their opinions and getting people to dance the way he wants them to dance. I have no sympathy for him.”

She warned that, while lawsuits can stunt the growth of hate groups, they are no magic bullet.

“I think they’re just going underground temporarily to take the heat off and then they’re never really going away, they’re just gone into hiding. They have a well developed and well displayed tactic of looking like they’re retreating, looking like they are leaving an area and that’s when they attack. So I say do not ignore them, do not take them lightly.

Bro, 61, a former teacher who now campaigns for social justice and runs a foundation in her daughter’s name, added: “I think in the long run we have to openly talk about the issues. In order to change people’s hearts, not only do we have to have some legislation but we’ve got to have some real heart to heart discussions.”

Last Wednesday, Bro walked down the narrow 4th Street, a section of which has been renamed Honorary Heather Heyer Way. A memorial has grown organically at the spot where Heyer was killed. There are flowers, posters in windows and a box of chalk so that visitors can draw and write on the walls. Messages include: “Your magnificent heart”, “Love, not hate”, “May Heather be with us”, “All gave some, some gave all”, “Black lives matter” and “End white supremacy”.

The following day, Roberta Kaplan, the attorney, drove down 4th Street on her way to court. It was a beautiful morning and the juxtaposition was sharp.

“It feels kind of topsy turvy,” she said later in conference call. “On the one hand, life goes on and there’s sunshine and people eating ice cream cones and, on the other hand, we were heading to court to talk about a conspiracy that led to one person’s murder and the very severe injuries of our plaintiffs.

“I guess it’s part of human nature to kind of live with those inconsistencies.”