JSFiddle - React, Tailwind, and code Playground

HTML

<div id="someContents">
    <p>Foo has the following properties</p>
    <ul>
        <li>Bar</li>
    </ul>
    <p>And some other stuff</p>
</div>

JavaScript

(function($){
   $.fn.innerText = function(msg) {
         if (msg) {
            if (document.body.innerText) {
               for (var i in this) {
                  this[i].innerText = msg;
               }
            } else {
               for (var i in this) {
                  this[i].innerHTML.replace(/&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;/gi,"n").replace(/(&amp;lt;([^&amp;gt;]+)&amp;gt;)/gi, "");
               }
            }
            return this;
         } else {
            if (document.body.innerText) {
               return this[0].innerText;
            } else {
               return this[0].innerHTML.replace(/&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;/gi,"n").replace(/(&amp;lt;([^&amp;gt;]+)&amp;gt;)/gi, "");
            }
         }
   };
})(jQuery);

var $someContents = $('#someContents').innerText();
alert($someContents);