WASHINGTON — The white supremacists who alarmed the nation a year ago on the streets of Charlottesville, Va., with their tiki torches and hateful chants show signs, at least temporarily, of being pushed back into the shadows after months of legal challenges, counterprotests and internal strife.

Sunday’s sparse turnout on the streets of Washington says little about the country’s current levels of intolerance, bigotry and xenophobia. Hate crimes in the 10 largest American cities were up last year, and fearmongering talk of “massive demographic changes” has made its way into the mainstream. But it does say something about the disarray within a movement that last August had a disquietingly large turnout at a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

“It was a dead-enders event from the get-go, meaning that Charlottesville a year ago had an intention and agenda, and both failed,” said Lawrence Rosenthal, chairman of the Berkeley Center For Right-Wing Studies. “And the coalition that came together to put it together dissolved.”

The view from those inside the movement is not that different. “Now, we are facing so much pushback that people are not in the mood to celebrate,” said Richard B. Spencer, the white nationalist and prominent alt-right figure, who declined to attend Sunday’s event. “And I’m not going to do something demoralizing.”