The on-camera punching of Richard Spencer in DC last weekend launched a thousand memes. It also crystallized a moment of difficulty for the far-right movement whose name Spencer coined – the “alt-right”.

“It was a literal and figurative punch in the face,” Spencer told the Guardian in a telephone conversation, adding that it would change his approach to public appearances. “I didn’t think of myself as someone who needs bodyguards, but I clearly do. Particularly at events – an inauguration or an election. I just can’t do these things alone any more. It wasn’t like that six months ago, and it certainly wasn’t like that five years ago.”

Suddenly the far right is a target, and this is constraining the freedom of action that its leaders, like Spencer, once enjoyed.

In the wake of the election of Donald Trump, the movement has risen from relative obscurity to become a household political name. There has been voluminous coverage of Spencer’s views on race and white identity, which have been widely described as fascism.

This new prominence has led anti-fascist groups to focus on the movement’s leaders. Local activists targeted Spencer’s former base in Montana and in recent weeks, other prominent far-right bloggers, podcasters and YouTube personalities have been subject to “doxxings”: their real identities were revealed, with real-world consequences.

Just over a week ago, “Mike Enoch”, host of the podcast The Daily Shoah (whose title is a pun on the Holocaust) and operator of the website The Right Stuff, was revealed to be a New York-based tech worker named Mike Peinovich. The Right Stuff and its stable of podcasts were a major hub for promoting and popularising antisemitism and white supremacist theories of race. But the doxxing also revealed that Peinovich’s wife was of a Jewish background.

I didn’t think of myself as someone who needs bodyguards, but I clearly do Richard Spencer

For segments of the movement, this counted as a scandal, despite the support Peinovich received from Spencer and others. Subsequently, one of his colleagues at The Right Stuff announced in a podcast that Peinovich had separated from his wife, and reportedly he has also lost what he described as his “normie job”.

Peinovich was the latest in a string of doxxings involving others connected with the website. Another YouTuber, “Millennial Woes”, was unmasked as 34-year-old Colin Robertson, which reportedly led him to flee his native Scotland.

Spencer confirmed that these tactics have had an effect. “The doxxing is absolutely terrible and it does scare off a lot of people. I hate to say this but doxxing is a weapon, and it is a way of attacking people, and it often works.”

‘I am not alt-right. It’s fake news to say otherwise’

These attacks occurred amid continuing infighting between the “alt-light” – rightwing populists led by figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos and the “men’s rights” blogger Mike Cernovich – who have backed away from the white supremacy of the hard core, including Spencer.

Last weekend, Spencer was refused entry to the “Deploraball”, an event organised by Cernovich, entrepreneur Jeff Giesea and others in Washington DC. The Deploraball had been a source of conflict after Cernovich barred the far-right Twitter influencer Baked Alaska from the event after reports of his history of antisemitic remarks.

Talking with the Guardian via email, Cernovich explicitly distanced himself from the movement, saying “I am not alt-right. It’s fake news to say otherwise.” On Spencer’s exclusion from the event, he said: “The alt-right wants to be invited to my parties; I don’t go to theirs. That says it all.”

Hundreds of activists surrounded the rightwing ‘Deploraball’ on 19 January. Photograph: Michael/Pacific/Barcroft Images

Indeed, since Trump disavowed Spencer’s infamous conference which culminated in fascist salutes, figures like Cernovich and Giesea have tried to channel the energy of Trump’s online supporters into mounting a nationalist, populist challenge to the Republican party establishment.

Cernovich told the Guardian that the Deploraball was a statement of intent, describing it as “a party to reward those who made Trump’s election possible. It was also saber rattling … If the GOP opposes Trump, we’ll vote them out of Congress. We have the will to win and we do not like the globalist wing. We are too big to ignore.”

Asked about these ructions, Spencer said: “There’s always infighting in movements. You get bad apples in movements and all they do is infight. I just take steps to avoid it, stay above it, and not get pulled into it.”

Matthew N Lyons, a longtime scholar of the far right and author of a forthcoming book on the “alt-right”, agrees that the movement is facing a difficult moment.

I hate to say this but doxxing is a weapon, and it is a way of attacking people, and it often works Richard Spencer

“There’s been real disagreement between the alt-right and some of its sympathisers. The brouhaha over fascist salutes at the NPI conference was an example of that. Some people were critical of Spencer for making the alt-right look bad, especially figures on the alt-light,” he said. The disagreements over tactics and ideology is “to some extent coming more out into the open. It’s likely those tensions will continue.”

But Lyons said the fact that they were on the back foot was largely a testament to the effectiveness of anti-fascist tactics. He said doxxing “does certainly constrain their freedom of action in the sense that it makes them more cautious. Mike Peinovich did not want his name to be made public because of work and personal considerations. That’s clearly an example where doxxing weakened the movement.”

But is violence a legitimate tactic? “The far right have, again and again, shown that they are quite ready to use violence, and more likely to use it against those who they see as vulnerable. If they see that people are prepared to defend themselves, in many cases they back off.”

Lyons, who describes himself as an anti-fascist, sees no reason for complacency. “I don’t want to glorify force, but I think it is appropriate to organize to defend communities under attack.”

He also warns against placing too much stock in Trump’s disavowals.

“Whether or not they stay on good terms with Trump, they can still have an influence on the administration, because they have shown that they communicate effectively with a significant part of Trump’s base.”

Richard Spencer is also well aware of this. Last week he launched a new, collaborative website, altright.com, which is intended as a more “populist, big tent” channel for the movement’s ideas than previous, more esoteric sites.

It is run out of premises in Washington DC which are shared with Arktos, a far-right publisher.

“Ultimately, it will be a Breitbart-style site with a lot of different voices and a lot of people,” he said. The aim is to bring more people into the movement, and to create a network on the far right.

“Everyone in the leadership of altright.com is open and you can’t stalk them. I can totally understand why people don’t use their real name or face – because they want to protect their family and their career and their livelihood.”

He paused, and then added: “We’re not going to become a mainstream movement unless we show our face.”