Former President Donald J. Trump drew a crowd of thousands on Saturday to a quiet South Carolina town’s Independence Day event, where he assailed the integrity of major American institutions and painted a dark portrait of the country ahead of a holiday meant to celebrate its underpinnings.
Speaking for nearly 90 minutes on Main Street in Pickens, S.C., with at least 20 American flags behind his back, Mr. Trump often eschewed the rhetorical flag-waving and calls for unity that have long been as central to Independence Day as hot dogs, baseball and fireworks.
Instead, the twice-impeached and twice-indicted former president railed against Democrats and liberals, who he said threatened to rewrite America’s past and erase its future. He skewered federal law enforcement, which he accused without evidence of rampant corruption. And he attacked President Biden, enumerating what he saw as his character flaws and accusing him of taking bribes from foreign nations.
“We want to have a respect for our country and for the office” of the presidency, Mr. Trump said. “But we really have no interest in people who are sick.”
Mr. Trump’s comments were largely familiar. But the event highlighted the hold he has on his most fervent supporters — a challenge for his Republican rivals as they seek their party’s presidential nomination from far behind Mr. Trump in the polls.
Despite sweltering humidity and heat, thousands of people swarmed the streets of Pickens — a town of about 3,000 in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains — beginning at dawn.
Pam Nichols, who described herself as an “insurrectionist,” said that she flew from Mundelein, Ill., to proudly support Mr. Trump in person. She had last done so in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, she said, when a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building. She did not talk in detail about her actions that day.
“I was told to lay low after,” Ms. Nichols said, adding that she had watched a number of Mr….