1. He convinced people not to wear masks. He convinced governors and members of Congress not to take it seriously. He diverted attention from fruitful avenues of study to supporting his irresponsible claims about a cure around the corner. He encouraged people to go to work while infected.
2. Obviously you knew I was talking about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 since you identified the year. So why the display of false erudition? Anyway, I do want to talk about it. He signed that act because the working-class Black-led rebellion against Jim Crow was shaking the foundations of the country, to the point that Kennedy had to call in Martin Luther King, A. Philip Randolph, and Walter Reuther to get the masses off the revolutionary road and back into channels of lobbying, lawsuits, business unionism, and occasional measured disobedience. But to do that he had to twist some arms in Congress on the civil rights bill he had long supported as part of the 2-party jockeying to stay ahead of the rapidly liberalizing public mood on civil rights. Kennedy, which could afford to give up neither Black votes nor the votes of pro-civil rights organized labor, invested nearly all his political capital in the civil rights bill, and after his murder, Johnson may have felt a personal moral obligation, and certainly was under tremendous social pressure, to honor his memory by supporting it. Regardless, Johnson still needed to defuse the radical social movement against Jim Crow before too many Black, white, and Latino Americans were radicalized by participation in it. One of the main reasons there was a bill to sign was that the United Auto Workers put the screws to the auto companies to back off their financial support for northern conservatives (mostly Republicans) who opposed Title II on “owner’s right to decide whom to serve” grounds (Title II barred discrimination in public accommodations ... Southern Democratic conservatives who were gonna vote against it regardless, but could be persuaded to pursue their filibusters with less tenacity by patronage and concessions, mostly objected to Title VII on equal employment opportunity).