Definition of "launch pad"

Unfortunately, she has used the attack as a launch pad for a bizarre and undercooked exercise in rhetorical bothsidesism, in which she argues that American Jews should be just as worried about college students who overzealously criticize Israel as they are about the aspiring Einsatzgruppen who shoot up shuls.

2019 September 6, Jordan Weissman, “How Not to Fight Anti-Semitism”, in Slate‎