Donald Trump wants celebrities to kiss the ring. Bill Maher did: who’ll be next? | Emma Brockes

If President Trump invited you to the White House , would you go? This is the question US hacks and other media personalities have been asking themselves since the inauguration, an American version of that self-flattering British perennial: when Buckingham Palace calls, will you be buying a fascinator to accept the OBE ? In the US context, respect for the “office of the president” is taken seriously enough that if the president calls, you don’t turn him down.

Maher is only the starkest example of a general softening of the cultural resistance to Trump .

Likewise for Ellen DeGeneres , who moved to the Cotswolds , while we must assume that Cher , Sharon Stone , Miley Cyrus and Whoopi Goldberg are still waiting on a third quote from movers but the three Yale professors who moved to Canada for the same reason have copped some flak for leaving the fight. You can’t win, perhaps. But watching Maher this week , there are better ways of losing. - Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist.