Query posts only with actual text content (not including shortcode or images)

Here are some notes:

• There’s a problem with how $args is defined:

  $args = new WP_Query(array( ... ) );
  $the_query = new WP_Query( $args ); 
  

  i.e. there are two WP_Query instances here but $args must be an array.

• It looks like this part is problematic too:

  $content = str_word_count( strip_tags( $content ) );
  if( '' !== $content )
  

  Note that str_word_count() returns a number or an array for other format input parameters.

  Here you’re using a strict empty string comparison.

• You should use pre_get_posts action if possible, instead of introducing another secondary query.

• I can see another possible problem with this approach: If the query returns only posts that contains shortcodes or images, then there’s nothing to display.

• Another approach might be to automatically store that information (e.g. as post meta) when you save the post.

  If you store it under the post meta key _wpse_searchable then you could adjust your meta query:

  'meta_query' => [
     'relation' => 'AND',
      [
          'key'     => '_thumbnail_id',
          'compare' => 'EXISTS',
      ],
      [
          'key'     => '_wpse_searchable',
          'value'   => true
      ]
  ],
  

  If a post isn’t “searchable”, next time we update it, we could also just delete that custom field automatically.